283: Nook NUC: A NUC for Your Nook

00:00SPEAKER- Is there ever in your mind a situation where it's okay

00:04SPEAKERto plug a surge protector into another surge protector?

00:08SPEAKER- Yeah, it's anytime you need more plugs

00:10SPEAKERon that surge protector, it's like a network switch.

00:12SPEAKER- Done and done, thanks for listening.

00:14SPEAKER- No, look, there are rules, good reasons

00:17SPEAKERnot to plug things into other things,

00:19SPEAKERbut sometimes I'll put a surge protector

00:22SPEAKERat the end of an extension cord.

00:23SPEAKER- Yeah, that's probably fine.

00:25SPEAKERThat's, I mean, the thing I've never been clear about

00:27SPEAKERand 'cause the recommendation has always been

00:29SPEAKERdon't plug a surge protector into another surge protector.

00:31SPEAKERI didn't know if that was a thing

00:31SPEAKERabout stacking the surge protection

00:34SPEAKERand that presenting an issue,

00:35SPEAKERor is that more of a general, forgive me for saying this,

00:39SPEAKERbut the general public is kind of dumb safety precaution

00:42SPEAKERof like, hey, you shouldn't overload a circuit,

00:44SPEAKERyou shouldn't be running too many things off of one outlet,

00:46SPEAKERyou shouldn't be X, Y, and Z multiplying plugs across,

00:50SPEAKERyou know what I mean?

00:50SPEAKERLike, is it something inherent

00:52SPEAKERto the way surge protection works

00:53SPEAKERand that you shouldn't stack that,

00:54SPEAKERor is it just, hey, electricity is dangerous, like be smart?

00:58SPEAKER- Oh man, I don't know that.

01:00SPEAKERBut my assumption is that it's the,

01:02SPEAKERhey, people will do something stupid

01:03SPEAKERlike plug 35 things into one 120 volt outlet.

01:07SPEAKER- Hey, what if you have like a 10 outlet surge protector

01:09SPEAKERand you could just,

01:09SPEAKERthat's just 10 more surge protectors you could plug in.

01:11SPEAKER- Yeah, well, like, so we,

01:13SPEAKERAdam and I were building a PC the other day, PC World,

01:16SPEAKERand we put a bunch of, like, we put a lot, a lot of fan,

01:19SPEAKERit was one of those fish bowl cases with like 10 fans.

01:22SPEAKER- Oh, I hate those things. - 10 or 11 fan slots.

01:24SPEAKERI mean, I think they're really cool.

01:25SPEAKER- The kind where like two sides are glass,

01:27SPEAKERbut it's one, it's one right angle glass panel.

01:29SPEAKER- Yeah, exactly.

01:30SPEAKER- It's like, man, the structural,

01:32SPEAKERthe structural lack of integrity to that design,

01:35SPEAKERlike just makes my skin crawl.

01:37SPEAKER- Well, so the glass on the front

01:39SPEAKERis typically real thick.

01:40SPEAKER- Oh yeah, I guess.

01:42SPEAKER- And there's metal on the top of the bottom.

01:43SPEAKERSo you screw it in and it becomes the, you know,

01:46SPEAKERthe third wall of your house.

01:48SPEAKER- I mean, admittedly,

01:49SPEAKERI'm not a window and PC cases fan to begin with,

01:52SPEAKERbut like that just feels like a form over function edge case,

01:57SPEAKERlike extreme asking for trouble.

01:59SPEAKER- Well, okay, so I don't stand on my PC case.

02:02SPEAKERIt hangs under my desk in a structured way.

02:06SPEAKERAnd, and anyway, we put 10 fans in this thing

02:10SPEAKERand there were plenty of fan headers

02:11SPEAKERto plug most of them in with some splitters,

02:13SPEAKERbut the fans that we had came

02:14SPEAKERwith these three way splitters.

02:16SPEAKERAnd I was like, well, what if we,

02:19SPEAKERwe could plug three fans into each splitter

02:21SPEAKERand then we plug those three splitters into another splitter

02:26SPEAKERand then just plug it into one fan header.

02:27SPEAKER- Why not?

02:28SPEAKERLike 12 volts should be enough for anybody.

02:30SPEAKERI think Bill Gates said that.

02:31SPEAKER- Yeah, that's what I said.

02:32SPEAKERYeah, yeah, exactly.

02:33SPEAKERThat's what Bill Gates said.

02:34SPEAKERAnd I was surprised 'cause it actually worked.

02:37SPEAKERI expected the fans to like run slower

02:39SPEAKERthan they're supposed to or something

02:40SPEAKERand it was totally fine.

02:41SPEAKER- Now, I guess they all necessarily

02:43SPEAKERhave to run at the same speed, but that's probably fine.

02:46SPEAKER- Yeah, so they all run the same speed when you do that,

02:48SPEAKERbut we weren't, this wasn't a PC for actual use.

02:51SPEAKERThis was just to do a build on a Thursday afternoon, yeah.

02:54SPEAKER- Show build.

02:56SPEAKERThe reason I was asking about

02:57SPEAKERdaisy chaining search protectors,

02:58SPEAKERI've got the CRT going as we discussed last week.

03:02SPEAKERI've been tidying up what I'm coming to think of

03:04SPEAKERas my little Mr. Nook or my analog video game Nook.

03:08SPEAKERIt's in this like-

03:09SPEAKER- But you got a Nook for that?

03:10SPEAKER- I do not have a Nook for my Nook.

03:12SPEAKER- Okay, you don't have a Nook Nook?

03:13SPEAKER- No, not yet. - Or a Nook Nook?

03:15SPEAKER- Not yet, but maybe at some point.

03:16SPEAKER- Yeah, you should think about a Nook Nook.

03:18SPEAKER- It's in one square of this little kind of like

03:20SPEAKERfour by two IKEA sort of shelving unit behind me

03:23SPEAKERthat you can kind of see. - Yeah, it's a classic.

03:26SPEAKER- I've got an old surge, but like an old, like-

03:30SPEAKER- Vintage?

03:31SPEAKER- 30 year old like I-

03:33SPEAKER- Probably more of a power strip than a surge protector now.

03:35SPEAKER- I moved it out here is, I had it back home, let's say.

03:39SPEAKER- I'm gonna say that's probably not gonna do

03:40SPEAKERmuch surge protection.

03:41SPEAKER- But it was a nice enough one to have,

03:43SPEAKERwe've talked about this before,

03:44SPEAKERit was a nice enough one to have the little LED light on it

03:47SPEAKERthat indicates surge protection.

03:49SPEAKERAnd that light is not on anymore.

03:51SPEAKER- Yeah, my understanding is that those are not directly,

03:56SPEAKERthey're a correlation, not a definite causation

04:02SPEAKERbetween the surge-

04:02SPEAKER- More of a hint than a suggestion.

04:05SPEAKER- Yeah, it's like the air filter light on your,

04:09SPEAKERit's like the replace the filter light on your dehumidifier

04:11SPEAKERthat just when you press the, hey, I just reset the filter,

04:13SPEAKERit sets a timer for three months.

04:17SPEAKERBut yeah, those are like, okay.

04:19SPEAKERSo my theory on surge protectors is it really depends

04:23SPEAKERon what you plug into them.

04:25SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, this is the TV and a mister

04:28SPEAKERand like a USB powered brick.

04:30SPEAKERAnd that's generally about it.

04:34SPEAKERMaybe a GameCube or a PS2 once in a while.

04:36SPEAKER- So my mister stuff is all plugged

04:38SPEAKERinto one of those Anker power cubes

04:41SPEAKERwith the three like 25 watt USB ports.

04:44SPEAKERAnd then it's got four, three or 420,

04:50SPEAKERyou know, just normal power plugs on it.

04:52SPEAKER- Okay.

04:53SPEAKER- So it ends up being one tight little package.

04:55SPEAKER- I just started having visions of you modding

04:58SPEAKERthat old General Electric TV for USB-C power.

05:02SPEAKER- Oh God, I, hmm.

05:05SPEAKER- You should do that.

05:06SPEAKERThat's like a thing in console modding these days.

05:08SPEAKERLike a lot of people like to mod USB-C power support

05:11SPEAKERinto things like PSUs and GameCubes now.

05:13SPEAKER- That makes a lot of sense, actually.

05:15SPEAKERYeah, the EU loves it, I bet.

05:18SPEAKER- I'm sure.

05:19SPEAKERAnd anyway, so there is another surge protector

05:21SPEAKERin the vicinity of that area.

05:23SPEAKERAnd I was just thinking like, could I just plug that old,

05:26SPEAKERprobably not surge protecting strip into the one that is

05:29SPEAKERand still get the benefits and be safe.

05:33SPEAKER- I don't have a good sense of how much power

05:34SPEAKERthe old CRT uses.

05:36SPEAKER- Yeah, I need to look it up.

05:38SPEAKER- Yeah, but like if you were using,

05:40SPEAKERso if you were using like a toaster oven and the microwave

05:43SPEAKERand then plugged your washing machine

05:45SPEAKERinto the same surge protector

05:46SPEAKERand then use that last port of the surge protector

05:48SPEAKERto also plug in a giant gaming PC,

05:51SPEAKERthat's gonna go badly 'cause it's gonna trip your breaker.

05:53SPEAKER- Oh yeah. - Right?

05:54SPEAKER- Yeah.

05:55SPEAKER- I don't actually know.

05:57SPEAKERI think you're probably fine.

05:58SPEAKER- I think it's probably fine.

05:59SPEAKERAlthough I've got another suggestion.

06:02SPEAKER- Yeah.

06:03SPEAKER- What if I buy a new surge protector instead?

06:05SPEAKER- I mean, I don't think that there's a lot of use

06:08SPEAKERfor vintage in surge protection.

06:10SPEAKER(upbeat music)

06:17SPEAKER- I found a weird artifact

06:19SPEAKERwhen I was cleaning out my office last week.

06:20SPEAKER- I love those.

06:21SPEAKER- So I had in the back of the closet in my office,

06:24SPEAKERI had a tote bag that had about 50 pounds of pennies in it.

06:30SPEAKER- Huh, okay.

06:31SPEAKER- Which like, I don't wanna get into the whole penny thing.

06:34SPEAKER- So you found several thousand artifacts instead?

06:38SPEAKER- Well, so look, my feelings on the pennies

06:41SPEAKERis the dollar has become worth less.

06:43SPEAKERI have started to mirror the feelings

06:45SPEAKERof the worst person in the world on pennies.

06:47SPEAKERAnd you know, look, I just put them in a tote bag

06:52SPEAKER'cause it wasn't worth rolling them up

06:54SPEAKERto take them to the bank and get money.

06:56SPEAKERNow we have one of those coin machines

06:57SPEAKERwhich has been at the grocery store for like 15 years now.

07:00SPEAKER- The Coinstar?

07:01SPEAKER- Yeah, so that tells you how long this bag of coins

07:03SPEAKERhas been in my garage.

07:04SPEAKERBut I mean, in my closet, and I was like,

07:08SPEAKERI don't wanna have to sort this,

07:09SPEAKERbut I have a 12 year old

07:10SPEAKERwho doesn't get to handle real money very much.

07:13SPEAKERSo she was like, I'll go through those and sort those, dad.

07:16SPEAKEROh yeah, okay.

07:17SPEAKER- Is this like the CRT in the old video games thing

07:20SPEAKERwhere it's novel to her?

07:21SPEAKERShe actually wants to deal with something

07:23SPEAKERthat we all thought was mundane and annoying?

07:25SPEAKER- Yeah, artifacts of a pastime, exactly.

07:28SPEAKERWell, look, I have a specialty,

07:30SPEAKERlike when I was in high school,

07:31SPEAKERI ran a couple of vending machines around Bristol.

07:34SPEAKER- Wow.

07:35SPEAKER- Like the kind that you put a dime in

07:37SPEAKERand get like some candy coated peanuts

07:39SPEAKERor something out of, capsule machines.

07:40SPEAKER- And a dime?

07:42SPEAKER- Yeah, dime.

07:43SPEAKER- Vending machine?

07:44SPEAKER- Yeah, well, it's like the kind that,

07:46SPEAKERyeah, it's like the gumball machine, basically.

07:49SPEAKERSo--

07:50SPEAKER- Oh, like a literal turner, like crank turn?

07:51SPEAKER- Like you turn a crank, yeah.

07:52SPEAKER- Like a crank operated one, okay, that's--

07:54SPEAKER- Yeah, I bought a bunch of them for like 300 bucks.

07:58SPEAKER- Do you remember when dollar slots

07:59SPEAKERbecame a thing on vending machines?

08:01SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, they never worked.

08:02SPEAKER- You remember, well, I mean, I'm more thinking

08:04SPEAKERabout the time when you didn't need multiple dollars

08:07SPEAKERto buy things out of machines,

08:08SPEAKERlike a coin slot was enough.

08:11SPEAKER- When I was a kid, back in my day,

08:13SPEAKERyou just dropped a quarter in the vending machine

08:16SPEAKERand it would give you a SOTY pop.

08:17SPEAKER- Yep.

08:19SPEAKER- So anyway, she was going through all these coins

08:22SPEAKERand I told her to pull out anything

08:24SPEAKERthat doesn't look like the other ones, right?

08:26SPEAKERSo there were a couple of loonies,

08:28SPEAKERa couple of Canadian dollars, a couple of toonies.

08:31SPEAKER- Toonies?

08:31SPEAKER- Yeah, toonies are $2 Canadian coins with loons,

08:34SPEAKERbut they have like a silver outside and a gold inside.

08:38SPEAKER- Sure, yes, I think I've got a little,

08:41SPEAKERI've got a tiny little drawstring sack of foreign coins

08:43SPEAKERaround here that I've accumulated on my various work travels.

08:46SPEAKER- That's what Crown Royal bags are for, right?

08:49SPEAKERYou put your foreign money in there.

08:51SPEAKERSo we had some pesos, we had some other stuff,

08:55SPEAKERsome check money, some stuff like that.

08:58SPEAKERAnd there was a one Chuck E. Cheese token from 2000,

09:04SPEAKERwhich was, I guess, the last time I went to Chuck E. Cheese.

09:07SPEAKERThat's gonna be my new poker cardkeeper, I think.

09:10SPEAKERHis Chuck E. Cheese token is pretty good.

09:12SPEAKERBut she also found this,

09:15SPEAKERwhich is a Maximum PC kick-ass dog tag.

09:19SPEAKERThe kick-ass award was our editor's choice award

09:21SPEAKERat Maximum PC.

09:23SPEAKERBut the interesting thing on it is on the back,

09:26SPEAKERit says Maximum PC party, Hard Rock Cafe,

09:29SPEAKERWednesday, November 17th, 1999, 8 p.m. to 11 p.m.

09:34SPEAKERNow, that was at Comdex in 1999.

09:39SPEAKERAnd I'm gonna go and tell you,

09:40SPEAKERI would not be sitting here right now talking to you

09:43SPEAKERwithout that dog tag.

09:45SPEAKERBecause I was working at Ars Technica at the time

09:48SPEAKERand Maximum PC was selling our ads.

09:51SPEAKERAnd so when we went to Comdex, we met the Maximum PC

09:54SPEAKERfor all the ad network people,

09:57SPEAKERincluding Tom's Hardware and some other folks,

09:59SPEAKERbig, big, big names, had an ad dinner.

10:02SPEAKER'Cause we went and met the people

10:05SPEAKERwho were making money for us.

10:07SPEAKERAnd then they were like,

10:07SPEAKERhey, you should come to the party on Thursday night

10:10SPEAKERor whatever night it was, Wednesday night.

10:12SPEAKERIt's at the Hard Rock.

10:13SPEAKERAnd we were like, okay, sure, we'll come to the party.

10:14SPEAKERAnd they gave us all these dog tags

10:15SPEAKER'cause this was the admit one for the party.

10:18SPEAKER- Yes, the Hard Rock,

10:18SPEAKERthe site of many, many extracurricular functions

10:21SPEAKERat Las Vegas trade shows.

10:23SPEAKER- Yeah, it's like off the strip, but it's fun.

10:26SPEAKERAnd they had pretty good vibes.

10:30SPEAKERSo anyway, we went to this party

10:34SPEAKERand it's where I met all the editors of Maximum PC

10:37SPEAKERwho then were like, hey, you should come out.

10:40SPEAKERThey recruited me right away from Ars Technica, basically.

10:43SPEAKERAnd we're like, you should move to California

10:45SPEAKERand come be an editor at this magazine.

10:47SPEAKERAnd we ended up, it was a really fun,

10:50SPEAKERit was a weird party because we got there

10:52SPEAKERand it was all dudes.

10:53SPEAKERAnd then suddenly a bunch of women showed up

10:55SPEAKERand they were clearly not computer nerds

10:57SPEAKER'cause it was like the publisher of the magazine was like,

11:00SPEAKERwe gotta get girls at this party.

11:03SPEAKERSo I think he called somebody.

11:06SPEAKERAnd then we all left and went to,

11:07SPEAKERI think the Rio, which was still there then,

11:10SPEAKERand drank drinks and danced until like,

11:13SPEAKERbasically I had to go get on the plane to fly home drunk.

11:17SPEAKERWhen I got to Nashville

11:18SPEAKERand had to drive the three hours to Knoxville,

11:20SPEAKERI had to sit in the parking lot at the hotel

11:22SPEAKERfor about 10 hours so I was sober enough to drive.

11:25SPEAKER- Wow, 10 hours?

11:26SPEAKER- It was a good night.

11:28SPEAKER- 10 hours?

11:29SPEAKER- Look, I never went to sleep.

11:30SPEAKERI went straight from Maximum PC party at eight o'clock

11:36SPEAKERto getting on the plane at 8.55 the next morning.

11:39SPEAKER- Look, Vegas will do that to you.

11:41SPEAKER- It was bad.

11:42SPEAKERI mean, look, we also stayed at the Circus Circus that year

11:44SPEAKER'cause we didn't have any money at Ars

11:46SPEAKERand everybody kind of paid for their own hotel

11:47SPEAKERand I was broke.

11:48SPEAKERSo I couldn't even afford a room in the Circus Circus.

11:51SPEAKERI was in the Circus Circus extensions

11:53SPEAKERbehind the Circus Circus,

11:55SPEAKERwhich are like cinder block buildings

11:58SPEAKERin the parking lot of the Circus Circus behind it.

12:01SPEAKERLike, I think it's probably where the,

12:03SPEAKERhey, you can drive over cars with the tank places now.

12:05SPEAKER- Okay, great.

12:07SPEAKERCircus Circus still operating apparently.

12:09SPEAKER- Circus Circus, look, Circus Circus is eternal,

12:11SPEAKERbut the Circus Circus Hotel smelled simultaneously

12:15SPEAKERlike fire and water damage, like wet carpet and fire.

12:18SPEAKER- Okay.

12:19SPEAKER- So I assume somebody fell asleep smoking a cigarette

12:21SPEAKERand lit their mattress on fire

12:22SPEAKERand then they also put it out,

12:23SPEAKERbut they didn't remediate any of the carpet

12:25SPEAKER'cause it was the Circus Circus.

12:26SPEAKER- Yep, yes, that's how they roll.

12:29SPEAKERAnyway, wow, like full on like origin story artifact,

12:32SPEAKERnot regular career artifact,

12:34SPEAKERbut full on like this is where I got my start kind of thing.

12:38SPEAKERThat's cool.

12:39SPEAKER- Wouldn't be here without that.

12:40SPEAKER- Yeah, I found something similar

12:42SPEAKERwhen I was going through waterlogged stuff

12:44SPEAKERin the basement a few months ago.

12:46SPEAKERI was very pleased about this.

12:47SPEAKERLike a lot of my '98 E3 stuff got ruined,

12:49SPEAKERbut then up on a shelf in a duffel bag at some point,

12:52SPEAKERI found a little bag of basically everything I brought back

12:55SPEAKERfrom E3 '97, which was my first one.

12:58SPEAKER- Oh, wow, that's an Atlanta one?

12:59SPEAKER- Yeah, that was the first Atlanta one.

13:01SPEAKERAnd that basically is my version of what you just described.

13:04SPEAKERLike that E3 was like,

13:06SPEAKERI wouldn't be sitting here without that E3,

13:08SPEAKERwithout going to that and meeting people from IRC.

13:10SPEAKERAnd I had my show badge and everything.

13:12SPEAKERAnd it was like, man, this is kind of the beginning.

13:14SPEAKER- No, that's it, you should make a shadow box.

13:15SPEAKER- Yeah, probably.

13:17SPEAKER- You might shadow box would just be this

13:18SPEAKERand a bunch of vodka tonics, I think.

13:20SPEAKER(laughing)

13:22SPEAKER- Well, look, everybody's got to start somewhere.

13:24SPEAKER(upbeat music)

13:27SPEAKEROkay, this one's coming straight out the Discord.

13:29SPEAKER- Oh.

13:30SPEAKER- Straight from the episode topic suggestion channel,

13:33SPEAKERalthough suggested by Base Guy GT

13:35SPEAKERas something that might not be a full episode,

13:37SPEAKERmight in fact be good for an episode just such as this.

13:41SPEAKER- Perfect.

13:41SPEAKER- A mini topic.

13:42SPEAKER- Wait, we're doing mini topics?

13:45SPEAKER- Anyway, the proposal is that we comb through the lyrics

13:49SPEAKERof the Weird Al Yankovic 1999 classic,

13:52SPEAKERAll About the Pentiums to see how they hold up.

13:55SPEAKER- Ah.

13:56SPEAKER- 26 years later.

13:58SPEAKERI think you said right before we started this,

13:59SPEAKERyou've never heard the song.

14:00SPEAKERI find that impossible to believe.

14:02SPEAKER- I mean, I'm sure I've heard it, but it's not like,

14:04SPEAKERlook, this is confession time, Brad.

14:08SPEAKERNot a huge Weird Al fan.

14:10SPEAKER- Really?

14:11SPEAKER- I feel like I like QHF okay.

14:12SPEAKER- Man, how do you-

14:14SPEAKER- He was, he was pretty-

14:15SPEAKER- How do you be your type of guy and not like Weird Al?

14:18SPEAKER- I, look, man, I, Weird Al came with the kind of baggage

14:23SPEAKERthat would get you beaten pretty good when I was a kid and-

14:26SPEAKER- Oh, just full on 80s like nerd getting stuff

14:29SPEAKERin a locker type thing?

14:30SPEAKER- Yeah, and like, I don't know.

14:33SPEAKERBy the time I was old, by the time I was old enough

14:35SPEAKERthat it wouldn't have negative repercussions

14:37SPEAKERon my long-term survivability,

14:39SPEAKERI probably was, what do you mean?

14:42SPEAKERLike, the kind of guy you are?

14:44SPEAKER- There was strength in numbers, okay?

14:46SPEAKERI rolled with a lot of, Weird Al was my first show.

14:49SPEAKER- Wow.

14:50SPEAKER- I was like 13, I went to a Weird Al show.

14:52SPEAKER- Yeah, I, yeah, no, that wasn't my first show.

14:55SPEAKER- It was excellent.

14:56SPEAKERAll right, anyway, this song, I believe the song

14:59SPEAKERis in the style of All About the Benjamins.

15:02SPEAKER- Yeah, I believe that's correct.

15:03SPEAKER- If that's the case.

15:06SPEAKERI think I'm just gonna take these by couplet.

15:09SPEAKER- Yeah, that sounds good.

15:10SPEAKER- Each rhymed pair of lines.

15:12SPEAKERWe can just figure out what to do with them as we go.

15:15SPEAKERWhat y'all wanna do?

15:16SPEAKERWanna be hackers, code crackers, slackers?

15:19SPEAKERWasting time with all the chat room yakkers?

15:21SPEAKER- Okay, wait, is this a Puff Daddy song?

15:24SPEAKER- Yes.

15:25SPEAKER- That has this extra baggage now.

15:27SPEAKER- Pretty fraught these days, but look, Weird Al is-

15:30SPEAKER- Weird Al, unimpeachable.

15:31SPEAKER- Yes, pretty much.

15:33SPEAKER- Before we get into this, did you watch

15:34SPEAKERthat Daniel Radcliffe movie?

15:36SPEAKER- No, God, I forgot that came out.

15:37SPEAKERI really should have watched that.

15:38SPEAKER- It is, that's my favorite Weird Al joint.

15:41SPEAKERIt's really good.

15:42SPEAKER- I got the sense, I don't really know how to ask this

15:44SPEAKERwithout having seen the movie.

15:45SPEAKERI got the sense that they did something weird with it.

15:46SPEAKERLike of course-

15:47SPEAKER- You should just watch the movie.

15:48SPEAKER- Right, like it's not just a straight up biopic, right?

15:50SPEAKERLike there's something to it.

15:51SPEAKER- I mean, I am not a position to say

15:53SPEAKERwhether it accurately represents Weird Al's life,

15:56SPEAKERbut I will say that the movie is riveting.

15:57SPEAKER- I should, yes, okay.

16:00SPEAKERAnyway, yes, wasted lots of time with the chat room yakkers.

16:04SPEAKER- Yeah, we all did that.

16:06SPEAKERNine to five chillin' at Hewlett Packard working at a desk

16:09SPEAKERwith a dumb little placard.

16:11SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, I don't think people have placards

16:13SPEAKERon their desk anymore, but yeah, okay.

16:15SPEAKER- Also, I don't know, Hewlett Packard is something

16:16SPEAKERI associate with like the 60,

16:19SPEAKERwhen was Hewlett Packard founded?

16:20SPEAKERThat's like, Hewlett Packard is like original Silicon Valley

16:23SPEAKERlike crew cuts and like short-sleeved

16:25SPEAKERwhite buttoned up shirts style.

16:28SPEAKER- Yeah, pocket protectors and short sleeve dress shirts.

16:30SPEAKERBut Hewlett Packard sells a buttload of computers still.

16:34SPEAKER- And they did back then.

16:34SPEAKER- And also that's what he's lampooning here, actually.

16:36SPEAKERThat is like the rap diss here thing is like,

16:39SPEAKERhey, are you a square that works at HP?

16:41SPEAKERNo.

16:42SPEAKER- But like also at this time,

16:43SPEAKERHP would have been the computer you buy,

16:45SPEAKERone of the computers you buy if you go into like Walmart.

16:47SPEAKER- Yeah.

16:48SPEAKER- Yeah.

16:49SPEAKER- Paying the bills with my mad programming skills,

16:51SPEAKERdefragging my hard drive for thrills.

16:54SPEAKER- I do miss seeing the little boxes move around

16:56SPEAKERon the hard drive.

16:57SPEAKER- I mean, you can go get like fake defragging programs

17:00SPEAKERif you want these days.

17:02SPEAKER- That sounds pretty good.

17:03SPEAKERThey exist, I think there are a lot of places like itch.

17:05SPEAKERI have straight up seen things that just look like

17:07SPEAKERthe old windows or DOS defragger.

17:09SPEAKER- Well, I want a screensaver that does that.

17:11SPEAKER- I might take, well, I'm not listening to the actual song.

17:13SPEAKERI might take issue with the rhythm and meter

17:15SPEAKERof the pair of lines.

17:16SPEAKERBut anyway, I got me a hundred gigabytes of RAM.

17:19SPEAKERI never feed trolls and I don't read spam.

17:21SPEAKERYou can't have a hundred gigabytes weird Al.

17:23SPEAKER- I have 96.

17:25SPEAKER- That's not a power of two.

17:26SPEAKERWell, I guess I mean.

17:27SPEAKER- You can do 96.

17:28SPEAKER- RAM.

17:29SPEAKER- Yeah.

17:30SPEAKER- RAM is not always powers of two, but you know what I mean?

17:32SPEAKER- Yeah.

17:33SPEAKERThe non-binary RAM is what the non powers

17:35SPEAKERof two ones are called.

17:36SPEAKER- Installed a T1 line in my house,

17:38SPEAKERalways at my PC double clicking on my Ms. House.

17:41SPEAKER- I don't know about Ms. House,

17:42SPEAKERbut I'll allow the rest of that.

17:44SPEAKER- But T1 line, you know, like that's, you know.

17:48SPEAKER- The T1 sucks.

17:49SPEAKERI wouldn't want a T1.

17:50SPEAKERYou couldn't pay me to have a T1 now.

17:51SPEAKERI don't need that uptime.

17:52SPEAKERI need the speed, baby.

17:53SPEAKER- I think even in 99, T1 was still pretty damn,

17:56SPEAKERwell, it was, T1 is 1.5 megabits per second, so.

17:59SPEAKER- T1 was, look, I moved to California in 2000

18:02SPEAKERand was fricking stoked that I could get SDSL

18:05SPEAKERthat was 1.5 megabits each direction.

18:07SPEAKER- So I like that it was still pretty fast in 99, right?

18:09SPEAKERAlthough that was getting, like I was,

18:11SPEAKERI was close to being on the university network

18:13SPEAKERat that point, so the T1 was actually getting

18:16SPEAKERkind of slow by those standards.

18:18SPEAKER- If you were on cable, if you had a cable modem,

18:20SPEAKERT1 would have been slow by then.

18:22SPEAKER- Yes.

18:22SPEAKERMet a guy, we met a guy at the flea market last weekend

18:25SPEAKERwho had a T1 in the 90s.

18:26SPEAKERHe said it cost him about $2,000 a month.

18:29SPEAKER- Yep.

18:30SPEAKER- Well, of course he was,

18:30SPEAKERI think he was running a little boutique ISP.

18:32SPEAKER- Homegrown ISP, yeah.

18:34SPEAKER- Upgrade my system at least twice a day.

18:37SPEAKERI'm strictly plug and play.

18:38SPEAKERI ain't afraid of Y2K.

18:40SPEAKER- Okay, those things, that doesn't make any sense.

18:42SPEAKERLike, look, no one could have,

18:45SPEAKERI mean, I guess you could have been strictly plug and play.

18:48SPEAKERI don't know, I don't feel like,

18:48SPEAKERI don't feel like, I feel like picking this apart

18:51SPEAKERis against the spirit of the song.

18:54SPEAKER- Probably.

18:56SPEAKERUpgrade my system at least twice a day.

18:58SPEAKERAnd we were talking, checking for updates.

18:59SPEAKERDid they even do automatic updates back then?

19:02SPEAKER- Yeah, Windows 98 introduced automatic updates.

19:04SPEAKER- Okay, remember having to go download service packs?

19:07SPEAKER- Oh yeah.

19:08SPEAKER- Remember having to go find OSR2

19:09SPEAKERon Microsoft's site somewhere?

19:11SPEAKER- Shout out to Blues News for letting us know

19:13SPEAKERwhen there were important security updates

19:14SPEAKERfor your Windows 95 system.

19:16SPEAKER- 'Cause back then, updates like that meant like,

19:18SPEAKERhey, USB works now.

19:20SPEAKER- No, oh. - And stuff like that.

19:22SPEAKER- Yeah, 98, when 95 never had USB, I mean, maybe OSR2.

19:25SPEAKER- I think, I mean, okay, now we're just splitting hairs.

19:28SPEAKERI'm pretty sure OSR2 actually did add USB support to Windows 95.

19:31SPEAKERBut I don't think it worked was the problem, anyway.

19:34SPEAKER- I'm down with Bill Gates.

19:35SPEAKERI call him money for short.

19:37SPEAKER- I mean, I think he probably would like that.

19:39SPEAKER- I phone him up at home and I make him do my tech support.

19:41SPEAKEROkay, like.

19:43SPEAKER- I mean, look, on the nerd hierarchy,

19:45SPEAKERI think Weird Al is gonna beat up Bill Gates

19:47SPEAKERat the end of the day. - Probably, probably.

19:50SPEAKERIt's all about the Pentiums, what?

19:51SPEAKERYou've gotta be the dumbest newbie I've ever seen.

19:53SPEAKERYou've got Whiteout all over your screen.

19:55SPEAKER- Okay, so I don't like the non-inclusive nature of this.

20:00SPEAKER- Yeah, also now we're just ascending

20:02SPEAKERinto very trite nerd cliches with the Whiteout.

20:05SPEAKERI don't know.

20:06SPEAKER- Yeah, I do feel like you should try to lift up

20:10SPEAKERthe dumb newbies rather than smack them down Weird Al.

20:14SPEAKERIt's not very, not kind.

20:16SPEAKER- You think your Commodore 64 is really neato?

20:18SPEAKERWhat kind of chip you got in there, a Dorito?

20:20SPEAKER- Okay, that's pretty good.

20:21SPEAKER- I mean, sure, yes, that's like, okay,

20:23SPEAKERthat is some good dumb rap battle analogy stuff, sure.

20:28SPEAKER- I wish I had a Dorito.

20:29SPEAKERAlthough clowning on a Commodore 64 now

20:32SPEAKERis a lot different than it would have been in '99,

20:34SPEAKER'cause now everybody wants one.

20:35SPEAKER- Oh, yeah.

20:37SPEAKER- You're using a 286, don't make me laugh.

20:38SPEAKERYour Windows boots up in what, a day and a half?

20:41SPEAKER- I mean, can't argue with it, like legit.

20:43SPEAKER- Sure, you could back up your whole hard drive

20:45SPEAKERon a floppy diskette.

20:47SPEAKERYou're the biggest joke on the internet.

20:49SPEAKER- I don't know about diskette and internet rhyming,

20:51SPEAKERbut oh, yeah.

20:52SPEAKER- Diskette is a word I have not heard in probably 25 years,

20:57SPEAKERprobably since about when this song came out.

20:59SPEAKER- This is pretty good.

21:00SPEAKERYou think he had like a consultant come in

21:01SPEAKERand help him with the nerd business?

21:03SPEAKERYou think he knew it.

21:04SPEAKER- I absolutely love all of this came right off

21:06SPEAKERof Weird Al's dome.

21:09SPEAKERYour database is a disaster.

21:10SPEAKERYou're waxing your modem, trying to make it go faster.

21:13SPEAKER- Okay, doesn't make much sense,

21:15SPEAKERbut I think the person is supposed to be a,

21:17SPEAKERhe's playing this person like a fool, yeah.

21:19SPEAKER- Waxing your modem is a pretty funny image.

21:21SPEAKER- That's pretty funny, yeah.

21:22SPEAKER- Hey, fella, I bet you're still living

21:23SPEAKERin your parents' cellar downloading pictures

21:25SPEAKERof Sarah Michelle Gellar.

21:27SPEAKER- Okay, I mean, look, that's a legitimate stereotype,

21:30SPEAKERI think.

21:30SPEAKER- And posting me too, like some brain dead AOLer.

21:34SPEAKERI should do the world a favor and cap you like old Yeller.

21:38SPEAKERYou're just about as useless as JPEGs to Helen Keller.

21:41SPEAKER- Well, there's a little bit of unfortunate ableism there,

21:43SPEAKERbut-

21:44SPEAKER- That all got raw.

21:46SPEAKER- I mean, I don't know why you need to throw down

21:48SPEAKERagainst Helen Keller, okay?

21:50SPEAKERAnd, you know, pour one out for old Yeller, I guess.

21:53SPEAKER- Like straight up talking about killing people, man.

21:55SPEAKERIs this the only time Weird Al ever talked

21:57SPEAKERabout murdering fools?

21:59SPEAKER- You really need to watch that movie, dude.

22:03SPEAKER- All right, there's one more verse.

22:04SPEAKER- I don't think we should do the whole verse.

22:05SPEAKERI think it's too long.

22:06SPEAKER- Oh, come on.

22:07SPEAKERThat didn't take that long.

22:08SPEAKER- Okay, okay, okay.

22:09SPEAKER- I mean, we can speed through it.

22:10SPEAKER- Yeah, just-

22:12SPEAKER- Logging in now, wanna run with my crew?

22:14SPEAKERRule cyberspace and crunch numbers like I do?

22:17SPEAKER- This is some real Herbert Kornfeld business here.

22:20SPEAKERRemember Herbert Kornfeld?

22:21SPEAKER- No, I don't.

22:22SPEAKER- Herbert Kornfeld was the onion accountant

22:25SPEAKERfrom the Streets column from like the early 2000s.

22:27SPEAKER- Oh, okay.

22:28SPEAKER- And he basically was like your accounts payable guy,

22:31SPEAKERbut he talked like a gangster rapper.

22:32SPEAKER- Yes, I saw, oh man, I should go pull some of that stuff up.

22:35SPEAKERI have, man, old onion was great.

22:36SPEAKERI mean-

22:37SPEAKER- Old onion was very good.

22:38SPEAKER- New onion is also a surprising front

22:41SPEAKERthat has opened in our war against fascism,

22:43SPEAKERbut also old onion was also quite good.

22:46SPEAKER- The Herbert Kornfeld was just really absurd.

22:48SPEAKERIt's probably really offensive now, I guess,

22:50SPEAKER'cause Herbert Kornfeld was not a nice man.

22:54SPEAKERThey called me the king of the spreadsheets,

22:55SPEAKERgot them printed out on my bedsheets.

22:57SPEAKERMy new computer has got the clocks, it rocks,

22:59SPEAKERbut it was obsolete before I opened the box.

23:02SPEAKER- Is that the truth?

23:03SPEAKER- A lot of like mid-90s beige box stereotypes in this song,

23:07SPEAKERwhich is probably understandable.

23:09SPEAKER- Yeah, there weren't any, there were no fancy cases.

23:12SPEAKERThere was no aluminum case in 1999.

23:13SPEAKER- Really just continuing on with the forced,

23:16SPEAKERor not the forced, but rather the rapid obsolescence

23:19SPEAKERfor multiple lines here.

23:21SPEAKERYou say you've had your desktop for over a week,

23:23SPEAKERthrow that junk away, man, it's an antique.

23:25SPEAKERYour laptop is a month old.

23:27SPEAKERWell, that's great if you could use

23:28SPEAKERa nice heavy paperweight.

23:30SPEAKER- I mean, look, 1999, six video cards launched.

23:34SPEAKER- Oh yeah, no, I mean, people were buying new CPUs

23:37SPEAKERevery like 18 months back then

23:38SPEAKERbecause things were slow and getting faster quickly.

23:41SPEAKER- You gotta get K6-200, you're gonna get played full.

23:45SPEAKER- That's right.

23:46SPEAKERMy digital media is write protected,

23:47SPEAKERevery file inspected, no virus is detected.

23:51SPEAKERHe's the best.

23:52SPEAKERThat's the theme here, he's on top of the pecking order.

23:55SPEAKER- Yeah.

23:56SPEAKER- I beta tested every operating system,

23:58SPEAKERgave props to some and others, I dissed them.

24:00SPEAKER- Wow.

24:01SPEAKER- You think he dissed BOS?

24:02SPEAKER- I bet he didn't like Windows ME.

24:04SPEAKER- Probably not.

24:05SPEAKER- Yeah.

24:06SPEAKER- I bet he was way into BOS actually.

24:08SPEAKERIn fact, while your computer's crashing,

24:10SPEAKERmine's multitasking.

24:12SPEAKERIt does all my work without me even asking.

24:14SPEAKERSo he was definitely way into BOS

24:16SPEAKERif he was a multitasking guy.

24:17SPEAKER- No, he was, this is all about the Pentiums.

24:20SPEAKERYou couldn't get BOS on a Pentium in 1990.

24:22SPEAKERWell, I guess you could in '99 probably.

24:24SPEAKER- Eventually, they ported it.

24:25SPEAKER- Yeah.

24:26SPEAKER- Got a flat screen monitor, 40 inches wide, wide.

24:29SPEAKERI don't know if these lyrics are,

24:31SPEAKERI don't know if the word wide

24:32SPEAKERactually appears twice in that line or not.

24:34SPEAKERI believe that yours says Etch-A-Sketch on the side.

24:37SPEAKER- Wow.

24:38SPEAKER- Flat screen monitor, like I guess there were--

24:40SPEAKER- That would have been a big deal.

24:40SPEAKERThat would have been an expensive monitor in 1989.

24:43SPEAKER- '99, my first LCD monitor was 2005 or six.

24:47SPEAKER- Yeah, he's got that pretty fly for a rabbi money

24:53SPEAKERto buy a 40 inch flat screen.

24:55SPEAKER- He had the bling.

24:57SPEAKERIn the 32-bit world, you're a two-bit user.

24:59SPEAKERYou've got your own news group, Alt.TotalLoser.

25:02SPEAKER- Okay, that's not actually the structure for news groups,

25:04SPEAKERbut I'll allow it.

25:05SPEAKER- Wait, could you not put hyphens in news groups?

25:09SPEAKER- Well, no, they're not gonna let you do an Alt.TopLevel.

25:11SPEAKERIt has to be Alt.SomethingOther.

25:14SPEAKERLook, the man will come down on you

25:16SPEAKERfrom trying to make a new top-level Alt dot.

25:19SPEAKER- It's only got so many syllables to work with, okay.

25:20SPEAKER- I guess, I guess.

25:22SPEAKER- Your motherboard melts when you try to send a fax.

25:25SPEAKERWhere do you get your CPU, in a box of Cracker Jacks?

25:27SPEAKER- Sick.

25:28SPEAKER- Yep, just--

25:30SPEAKER- Free with purchase.

25:32SPEAKER- Laying it down.

25:33SPEAKERPlay me online, well, you know that I'll beat you.

25:36SPEAKERIf I ever meet you, I'll control, I'll delete you.

25:39SPEAKER- Look, yeah.

25:40SPEAKER- I'm gonna say the repetition of the word you in there

25:43SPEAKERthat way is pretty good.

25:45SPEAKERLike, those are some like legit, decent, those are bars.

25:50SPEAKER- Yeah, I'll control, I'll delete you.

25:51SPEAKERI'm gonna put that in my vernacular.

25:53SPEAKER- You know that I'll beat you.

25:54SPEAKERIf I ever meet you, I'll control, I'll delete you.

25:56SPEAKERThat just flows, man.

25:57SPEAKER- That's amazing.

25:58SPEAKER- Yep, all right, that's all the verse.

26:01SPEAKER- It's all about the Pentiums.

26:02SPEAKERIt's all about the Pentiums, baby.

26:03SPEAKER- Yep.

26:04SPEAKER- Yeah, the song rips.

26:05SPEAKERThis sounds good, I'll have to listen to this.

26:07SPEAKER- I'm gonna say the song is more than a little bit

26:09SPEAKERof a time capsule, but I'm okay with that.

26:11SPEAKERIt's like, by the standards of the time, pretty good.

26:14SPEAKER- I don't know about the Commodore slander.

26:16SPEAKER- Pretty good, I'm gonna say.

26:19SPEAKERGood on you, Weird Al, keep being weird.

26:21SPEAKER(upbeat music)

26:24SPEAKER- Brad, what's your thermal goo application method?

26:29SPEAKER- Man, I've never settled on one, to be perfectly honest.

26:32SPEAKERI'd say like a key size or smaller dot in the middle

26:38SPEAKERand then like a very small dot around each corner.

26:41SPEAKER- Well, so I had some time, I was doing some benchmarks

26:45SPEAKERand I was swapping CPU's out a lot.

26:47SPEAKERSo I had time to work on this and do some research.

26:51SPEAKERAnd so I usually use the Cryonaut stuff,

26:54SPEAKERwhich has a little brochure in the bag

26:56SPEAKERthat says how to apply the goo.

26:58SPEAKER- Oh, okay.

26:59SPEAKERWell, I mean, if there were manufacturer recommendations,

27:01SPEAKERI would just go with those.

27:03SPEAKER- Well, but then I went and looked on,

27:04SPEAKERokay, so Cryonaut says, hey, why don't you take the goo

27:08SPEAKERand we give you a little smear thing

27:11SPEAKERand you use that smear to kind of spread it out over flat,

27:14SPEAKERover the surface.

27:15SPEAKERSo you want to get a thin layer

27:17SPEAKERand then there's less chance it's going to blast out

27:19SPEAKERthe sides and all that.

27:20SPEAKER- Which like, I avoid that at all costs.

27:22SPEAKERI mean, I think we're probably a long way

27:24SPEAKERfrom the days of conductive thermal paste,

27:26SPEAKERbut still like you just don't want to mess around components.

27:30SPEAKER- You can still get conductive thermal paste if you want,

27:32SPEAKERbut it's not.

27:33SPEAKER- You're doing like liquid metal or something crazy.

27:34SPEAKERBut I think most of the decent,

27:36SPEAKERlike regular heat spreader style stuff is fine these days,

27:40SPEAKERbut still you don't want to mess.

27:41SPEAKER- Yeah, you don't want to mess.

27:42SPEAKERSo, okay, so they said to spread it all flat

27:47SPEAKERand they'd give you a little trowel

27:48SPEAKERif you buy a big enough tube of the stuff.

27:50SPEAKERBut then I looked at the internet

27:51SPEAKERand the video recommendations are a little different

27:53SPEAKERbetween whether you have Intel or AMD,

27:55SPEAKERand especially if you have a dual CCD AMD chip,

27:58SPEAKERbecause the hot part of the dual CCD AMD chips

28:01SPEAKERisn't actually in the middle.

28:02SPEAKERIt's actually toward the top of the,

28:03SPEAKERor maybe the bottom of the heat spreader.

28:05SPEAKERIt was the bottom on Zen 4.

28:07SPEAKERI don't know how it is now.

28:08SPEAKER- I think it's still the bottom.

28:09SPEAKERI can't remember.

28:10SPEAKERBut the point is they recommend putting the big blob there

28:12SPEAKERand then doing like four small blobs in the corner

28:14SPEAKERand kind of like give it a little twist when you put it down

28:17SPEAKERso it kind of spreads it around.

28:18SPEAKER- Yeah, that sounds close to my method.

28:20SPEAKER- A push and twist?

28:21SPEAKER- Yeah.

28:22SPEAKER- I don't know, man.

28:23SPEAKERI tried the spread for the first time

28:25SPEAKERwhen I was doing the last few CPU swaps

28:28SPEAKERfor this benchmark loop.

28:29SPEAKERAnd I'm gonna go and tell you it's much easier to clean up.

28:32SPEAKERThere's way less goo.

28:34SPEAKERBut you gotta do it while it works best

28:37SPEAKERwhile the CPU is still warm from the last set of benchmarks.

28:41SPEAKERSo that it kind of decreases the viscosity of the stuff

28:45SPEAKERso that it's easier to spread.

28:47SPEAKER- That's what I was gonna ask

28:48SPEAKERwas what's your cleanup routine?

28:52SPEAKER- Oh.

28:53SPEAKER- Do you obsessively like isopropyl off

28:55SPEAKERevery last bit of the old goo before you put more stuff on?

28:58SPEAKER- Well, it depends on whether it's AMD or Intel

29:00SPEAKER'cause the AMD ones have those notches on the side

29:02SPEAKERthat are impossible to clean out.

29:04SPEAKER- That's terrible.

29:06SPEAKER- But I actually use Arctic Clean,

29:08SPEAKERwhich is I think it's from the same people

29:09SPEAKERthat make Arctic Silver.

29:11SPEAKER- Oh.

29:12SPEAKER- And it's two solvents basically.

29:16SPEAKEROne is designed to remove the goo

29:18SPEAKERand then the other is just removes a little bit of,

29:21SPEAKERis super cleaning for the very top layer

29:23SPEAKERto get a nice clean surface for your interface.

29:26SPEAKERAnd it's like six bucks, it's not expensive.

29:29SPEAKERThe tubs usually last me a couple of decades.

29:31SPEAKERSo maybe I should get some of that.

29:34SPEAKER- And you just put a couple of drops of it on

29:35SPEAKERand put first the one that's labeled one

29:38SPEAKERand then you wipe, use that to get the first layer goo off

29:41SPEAKERand then you kind of polish it with the number two.

29:43SPEAKER- I see, I just got some 91% isopropyl

29:47SPEAKERand have been using that, but.

29:49SPEAKER- Yeah, this is, and you put it on both surfaces.

29:52SPEAKERSo like if there's any kind of tarnish

29:53SPEAKERon the copper on the bottom of your heat sink,

29:59SPEAKERit'll clean that off too, which is nice.

30:02SPEAKERAnd it smells like oranges, smells like citrus.

30:04SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, most people are not switching CPU's

30:06SPEAKERas much definitely as you, or, I mean,

30:08SPEAKERI've only switched two CPU's in the last three years,

30:10SPEAKERbut even that is more than most people deal with.

30:13SPEAKER- The big problem with the Arctic Clean

30:15SPEAKERis usually when I need it,

30:16SPEAKERI can't remember where I put it last.

30:18SPEAKER- Yep, that will definitely happen.

30:20SPEAKERI'm not sure, I mean, I guess you don't run into this

30:22SPEAKERas much as you change CPU's, but I always wonder how long,

30:25SPEAKERand I'm sure this varies by brand,

30:27SPEAKERhow long you have before it starts drying out

30:29SPEAKERand becoming desiccated,

30:30SPEAKERand like it's just not serving its purpose anymore.

30:33SPEAKER- So that definitely varies by brand.

30:36SPEAKERSome of the, typically,

30:39SPEAKERso Cryonaut specifically sells formulations

30:41SPEAKERthat are designed to last a long time

30:43SPEAKERor designed for enthusiasts,

30:44SPEAKERand the enthusiast stuff will dry out faster

30:46SPEAKERbecause it's designed for more thermal transfer.

30:50SPEAKERLike old Arctic Silver was a classic example.

30:52SPEAKERThat stuff was designed to last for a really long time.

30:54SPEAKER- Sure.

30:55SPEAKER- But still, if you're at four or five years

30:58SPEAKERinto a PC and you're starting to see

31:01SPEAKERyour thermals are looking weird,

31:03SPEAKERthe question I have is,

31:05SPEAKERdo people who keep a CPU for five or six years

31:07SPEAKERactually look at thermals?

31:08SPEAKERAnd I kind of wonder if they do.

31:10SPEAKERTypically, replacing the thermal goo

31:13SPEAKERis an easy way to solve late-stage PC CPU crashes.

31:18SPEAKER- Yeah, you know what never changes is a graph iPad,

31:21SPEAKERbut I don't know, I still love the graph iPad in practice,

31:25SPEAKERbut I had to stop using one when I got this 14th gen Intel.

31:28SPEAKER- It's too hot.

31:29SPEAKER- 'Cause every degree centigrade really counted

31:33SPEAKERon this thing, and even bringing it down

31:35SPEAKERlike three or four degrees, as Pace did,

31:38SPEAKERwas very welcome at that point.

31:40SPEAKER- Yeah, it's, I totally get that.

31:43SPEAKERI think the graph iPads are great for stuff like SSDs.

31:48SPEAKER- Yeah.

31:49SPEAKER- Where you need contact between the board

31:51SPEAKERand the cooling device.

31:54SPEAKER- Yeah, right, or I use one.

31:55SPEAKERI still use a graph iPad in my NAS,

31:56SPEAKERwhich is a 12600K, which is not getting super hot,

31:59SPEAKERand is also not running at full tilt very much,

32:02SPEAKERunless I'm compiling a kernel or something.

32:05SPEAKER- I guess compiling a kernel does burn it pretty good, huh?

32:08SPEAKER- Actually, I rarely compile a kernel.

32:10SPEAKERThe only things I compile on a regular basis

32:11SPEAKERare ZFS kernel modules and Python and things like that.

32:16SPEAKERYou don't need to get into it.

32:17SPEAKERThe runtime manager that I use compiles Python from source

32:20SPEAKERevery time you install a new version.

32:21SPEAKERAnyway, there's that, I don't know what it's called.

32:25SPEAKERI think we've probably talked about it before.

32:26SPEAKERIt's the type of thing you still have to refer to

32:28SPEAKERby its sort of like industry chemical,

32:30SPEAKERlike alphanumeric code.

32:32SPEAKERI know Linus Tech Tips has pushed this stuff before.

32:35SPEAKERIt's some kind of other type of thermal interface material.

32:40SPEAKER- Oh.

32:41SPEAKER- I think we've talked about it before

32:43SPEAKERin the context of like,

32:44SPEAKER"Hey, people are talking about this instead of Pace.

32:46SPEAKER"I wonder if this is good."

32:47SPEAKERBut I don't remember, I don't remember what it's called.

32:50SPEAKERI think it's made by Honeywell, if I'm not mistaken,

32:52SPEAKERbut it's like some other type of thermal compound

32:55SPEAKERthat has to like cure, like the longer it stays heated up,

32:58SPEAKERthe more effective it gets or something like that.

33:00SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, like, so thermal interface is a place

33:03SPEAKERI don't like to do a lot of experimentation.

33:05SPEAKER- Yeah.

33:06SPEAKER- The one exception is that when I worked in the,

33:11SPEAKERwhen I was working back at some PC,

33:13SPEAKERwe used to use this stuff in the lab

33:14SPEAKERthat was specifically for short-term testing

33:16SPEAKER'cause it was easy to clean and it did a good job,

33:19SPEAKERbut it definitely would dry out like in a period of months.

33:23SPEAKERAnd that stuff was nice, but yeah, I don't like,

33:29SPEAKERevery once in a while I look at the liquid metal

33:31SPEAKERon the site and then I'm like,

33:32SPEAKER"Oh, do I really wanna fool with gallium in my computer

33:36SPEAKER"and then have to deal with the repercussions

33:39SPEAKER"of gallium leaking out of my computer

33:41SPEAKER"'cause it's on the side and I'm probably good."

33:45SPEAKER- You know, it's nice when things just work.

33:47SPEAKER- I like things that just work.

33:49SPEAKER(upbeat music)

33:52SPEAKER- You know, when you buy storage bins

33:53SPEAKERwith the intention of stacking them,

33:55SPEAKERthere's the one thing they don't really come out

33:58SPEAKERand tell you is like what the weight limits are

34:01SPEAKERon those things.

34:03SPEAKER- Really?

34:03SPEAKER- It feels like, well, I mean,

34:05SPEAKERI could roll over to the closet here

34:07SPEAKERand look at these new bins I bought,

34:08SPEAKERbut I don't remember seeing any recommendations

34:11SPEAKERabout how heavy to make them

34:12SPEAKERand how many high you can stack them.

34:15SPEAKER- So my experience is the kind you buy at Target,

34:18SPEAKERabsolutely don't say that.

34:20SPEAKER- Yeah, that's where these came from.

34:22SPEAKERI mean, they're Hefties,

34:22SPEAKERlike they're like reasonably resilient,

34:26SPEAKERI would like to think, but.

34:30SPEAKER- So I like, I've been getting these HDX bins

34:34SPEAKERfrom Home Depot.

34:36SPEAKER- Are they the black and yellow ones?

34:38SPEAKER- They're the black and yellow ones.

34:40SPEAKER- You are the second person.

34:42SPEAKERI think we had one of these

34:43SPEAKERthat we stored like guinea pig hay in it for,

34:45SPEAKERactually, yes, I'm looking the big black bin

34:48SPEAKERwith the yellow lid.

34:49SPEAKER- Yep, that's it.

34:50SPEAKER- You're the second person.

34:50SPEAKERGod, that, oh, that kills me.

34:52SPEAKERThat's cheaper than what I bought.

34:54SPEAKERCheaper and probably sturdier.

34:55SPEAKERThose things are built like tanks, right?

34:57SPEAKER- They're built kind of like brick shithouses, yeah.

34:59SPEAKER- Oh, and I started to say the reason I didn't get those,

35:02SPEAKERI wanted something clear

35:03SPEAKER'cause I want to be able to see what's in the bin.

35:05SPEAKER- That is exactly the knock against me.

35:07SPEAKERThe problem I think is that the clear plastic

35:08SPEAKERis always softer than the not clear plastic.

35:11SPEAKER- You're probably right, actually.

35:13SPEAKERI could have just labeled them, you know?

35:14SPEAKERThat's a real bummer, but I'm also working

35:17SPEAKERwith like very tight dimensions

35:18SPEAKERin this closet, in this apartment.

35:20SPEAKERLike those were too big for,

35:22SPEAKERI think it would have gotten less net storage space

35:24SPEAKERif I had gotten ones of that size.

35:25SPEAKER- So they're less efficient

35:26SPEAKER'cause there's a big cutoff down the side.

35:28SPEAKERLike they taper in.

35:30SPEAKERThe thing I really like about them the most

35:31SPEAKERis that they have 27,

35:34SPEAKERthey have different sizes that stack with each other.

35:37SPEAKERSo you could stack a 14 gallon with a 27 gallon one.

35:40SPEAKERSo like if you have something like books or something heavy,

35:43SPEAKERthen it'll go in the pile with the other ones.

35:46SPEAKER- Well, I-

35:47SPEAKER- But I can still lift it up.

35:48SPEAKER- I may have made more choices.

35:50SPEAKERI don't know, I've been re-binning all my stuff

35:53SPEAKERas we've talked about.

35:54SPEAKERI'm going kind of console generation by generation.

35:56SPEAKER- Yeah.

35:57SPEAKER- So I've got like the bottom one is like PS4

35:59SPEAKERand Xbox One era primarily.

36:02SPEAKER- Okay.

36:02SPEAKER- Above that is the, well actually, hang on.

36:05SPEAKERI think that might be two generations in that one.

36:07SPEAKERI think it's like PS3, 360 and Xbox One, PS4.

36:10SPEAKER- Just hardware though, not games.

36:11SPEAKER- Yeah, mostly just, yeah,

36:12SPEAKERjust consoles and controllers basically.

36:15SPEAKER- Yeah.

36:16SPEAKER- And above that is all the GameCube, Xbox, PS2,

36:18SPEAKERbut also all my handhelds.

36:20SPEAKERAbove that is everything before that basically,

36:22SPEAKERSuper Nintendo in 64, like PlayStation.

36:26SPEAKER- How are you separating stuff inside the bins?

36:30SPEAKER- It's a fun little Tetris game, you know, like generally,

36:32SPEAKERI pretty much always go anything that's like squarish

36:34SPEAKERand flat that can stack well goes in first.

36:36SPEAKERSo consoles and boxes and, you know, that AV selector,

36:40SPEAKERlike anything that is squarish and will stack

36:43SPEAKERas if it were Tetris pieces and then controllers

36:45SPEAKERand cables and stuff like that kind of fill in

36:47SPEAKERaround the edges.

36:48SPEAKER- So I like to have like a box inside the box

36:51SPEAKERwith all of the Xbox, the original Xbox stuff together

36:56SPEAKERand then a box inside the, so that then if I want to get

36:59SPEAKERto it, I can just pull out that one,

37:01SPEAKERI can open it up and pull out that one thing

37:02SPEAKERand don't have to dig for power connectors

37:03SPEAKERand mess up the whole box.

37:04SPEAKER- I consider doing something like that,

37:06SPEAKERbut that's like you said, that's just kind of,

37:08SPEAKERyou're losing a little bit more storage space that way.

37:10SPEAKER- You do lose a little bit more.

37:11SPEAKER- Anyway, that stack is now, I bought eight bins,

37:15SPEAKERstacked in a two columns by four configuration,

37:21SPEAKERthe console stack, I've only got three bins,

37:23SPEAKERmostly full and the bottom one is already starting

37:25SPEAKERto show some signs of.

37:27SPEAKER- Oh no.

37:28SPEAKER- I mean, the bin itself is not buckling,

37:30SPEAKERbut the little handles that lock into place,

37:33SPEAKERlike the handle is coming open slowly

37:35SPEAKERbecause it's bowing enough that the handle no longer grips.

37:40SPEAKERSo now I'm like, what do I even put in that top bin?

37:42SPEAKERLike now I'm afraid to keep stacking.

37:45SPEAKER- Look, let me tell you Brad, 998 today,

37:47SPEAKERthey'll deliver them to your house.

37:49SPEAKER- Wait, what?

37:50SPEAKER- Yeah.

37:50SPEAKER- Yeah, I'm sure you're looking at them.

37:51SPEAKERI don't, I'd have to look at the dementia.

37:53SPEAKER- 622 in stock.

37:55SPEAKER- Just spent a hundred bucks on these bins.

37:58SPEAKER- Well, you know, send them back.

38:01SPEAKERThey get red lids, red lids or yellow lids.

38:03SPEAKER- Oh man, red?

38:05SPEAKER- I don't know if I want red, but so these aren't perfect.

38:10SPEAKER'Cause like I said, the taper is,

38:11SPEAKERthere's a lot of wasted space on the side

38:13SPEAKERbecause of the taper in and there's structural,

38:16SPEAKERlike grooves and digs and stuff like that.

38:18SPEAKER- Oh yeah, those grooves are, yeah, that would not,

38:20SPEAKERwell, I mean, the way, like I said,

38:21SPEAKERthe way I'm stacking or not stacking,

38:23SPEAKERbut cramming a bunch of extra little cables

38:25SPEAKERand doohickeys in, those would fit

38:26SPEAKERinto those grooves just fine.

38:27SPEAKER- Yeah, it helps.

38:28SPEAKERBut for me, it's the hay you can get in 14 gallon

38:33SPEAKERor 27 gallon and it's the same,

38:36SPEAKERlike the same stacking size is the big deal.

38:39SPEAKERSo then I don't have to carry a bunch of 80 pound,

38:43SPEAKER27 gallon tubs around when somebody needs one.

38:47SPEAKER- I bet I would only be able to fit four of these

38:49SPEAKERin the closet where I've got eight of these current bins.

38:52SPEAKER- That's possible.

38:52SPEAKER- I think it would probably still be a net loss

38:54SPEAKERof storage space.

38:55SPEAKERSo I don't know, any structural engineers

38:59SPEAKERon the Discord want to chime in.

39:02SPEAKER(upbeat music)

39:04SPEAKER- Brad, do you have Mario Mania?

39:07SPEAKER- Always, since I was born.

39:08SPEAKER- Oh no, you're holding up a copy

39:10SPEAKERof the classic Mario Mania Nintendo Player's Guide.

39:13SPEAKERI do not.

39:14SPEAKERWeird, I just happened to have a PDF of it

39:16SPEAKERon my desktop though.

39:17SPEAKER- What a shocking coincidence.

39:20SPEAKERYeah, this has all the secrets of Super Mario World,

39:23SPEAKERplus a whole lot more about Mario only from Nintendo.

39:26SPEAKERI believe, I could be wrong,

39:29SPEAKERbut I think this was something I got

39:30SPEAKERfor subscribing to Nintendo Power.

39:32SPEAKER- Oh, so have you had that since?

39:34SPEAKERI was gonna ask where you got it.

39:35SPEAKERHave you had it since it was new?

39:37SPEAKER- I've had it since the '90s, yeah.

39:38SPEAKER- Oh, actually there is actually a distinct possibility.

39:41SPEAKERI do have a copy of that in the basement, but anyway.

39:43SPEAKER- Yeah, I mean, I asked a friend of the show,

39:47SPEAKERSteve Lin about it, and he's like,

39:48SPEAKER"Yeah, that's not, we have those, we're good."

39:50SPEAKER- Oh yeah, that thing.

39:51SPEAKER- Like they sent out a bazillion of them.

39:52SPEAKER- Printed by the millions.

39:55SPEAKERHave you seen this Meet Mario diagram?

39:59SPEAKER- I'm flipping through it right now.

39:59SPEAKER- It's on page four there.

40:01SPEAKERThey have a literal diagram.

40:02SPEAKERIt's like a technical diagram of Mario.

40:05SPEAKER- Yeah, he has a ever peeled Bowser indicators

40:07SPEAKERpointing at his eyes.

40:08SPEAKER- Yes, his nose is labeled as a trouble sniffer.

40:12SPEAKERHis ears, direct line for princesses in peril.

40:15SPEAKERHis hat is labeled as a custom made fallout shelter.

40:18SPEAKERAre there a lot of nuclear explosions

40:21SPEAKERhappening in the Mushroom Kingdom?

40:22SPEAKERMore like the Mushroom Cloud Kingdom.

40:24SPEAKER- It's funny because having worked at a magazine,

40:28SPEAKERI understand how stuff like this happens

40:30SPEAKERbecause you get to a point and you're like,

40:32SPEAKER"Hey, we have this page.

40:33SPEAKER"We have an extra page to fill.

40:36SPEAKER"We'll just put a big line art drawing of Mario there,

40:39SPEAKER"but we got plenty of those."

40:40SPEAKERAnd then they're like, "It's kind of boring.

40:44SPEAKER"Let's put some captions on it.

40:45SPEAKER"We'll put funny captions on it."

40:46SPEAKERAnd then here you go, trouble sniffer.

40:49SPEAKER- Yes, captions like the steel toad turtle trompers.

40:53SPEAKER- The one I liked is the evolution of Mario.

40:55SPEAKERThis is funny 'cause this is a thing Nintendo's done

40:57SPEAKERover the years.

40:59SPEAKER'Cause they did this with the Hyrule Historia things

41:01SPEAKERwhere they tried to cohere all of Zelda

41:04SPEAKERinto one overarching intentional story

41:10SPEAKERwhen it clearly wasn't meant to be that.

41:12SPEAKERBut this was in 1991 and this is showing the evolution

41:17SPEAKERof Mario from Donkey Kong to Donkey Kong Jr.

41:20SPEAKERWhen he's the villain, just to be clear,

41:23SPEAKERhaving enslaved Donkey Kong.

41:25SPEAKERTo Mario Brothers, or sorry, Mario Bros.

41:29SPEAKERTo Super Mario Bros., to Super Mario Bros. 2,

41:33SPEAKERwhich I don't know how you even wedge that one in,

41:35SPEAKERto Super Mario Bros. 3.

41:36SPEAKERAnd then it comes over.

41:39SPEAKERIt has like Super Mario Land, Dr. Mario.

41:42SPEAKERI wonder where he got his degree.

41:44SPEAKER- There's a page on the Super Mario Bros. Super Show in here.

41:47SPEAKERThey put a picture of Captain Lou Albano in this thing.

41:50SPEAKER- Well, I haven't gotten there yet.

41:51SPEAKER- That's impressive.

41:52SPEAKERThere's also a Luigi diagram, by the way.

41:55SPEAKER- Well, hold on, but I want to talk about the cameos

41:57SPEAKER'cause they list Mario was in pinball

42:00SPEAKERas he drives the little thing at the bottom.

42:02SPEAKERAnd he was in alleyway on the Game Boy,

42:04SPEAKERtheir Arkanoid knockoff.

42:07SPEAKERQuicks on Game Boy.

42:09SPEAKER- Don't disrespect alleyway, please.

42:11SPEAKER- Amigo Mario under the sombrero.

42:13SPEAKERLike, he showed up in a lot of weird places.

42:17SPEAKERWow, this Luigi one.

42:19SPEAKERMeet Luigi, parentheses, player number two.

42:23SPEAKER- His hat is a Luigi lid.

42:25SPEAKER- It is.

42:26SPEAKERHe has a surprise indicators.

42:28SPEAKERThose are eyebrows.

42:30SPEAKERLean green and seldom seen.

42:32SPEAKER- Luigi's head is on a swivel.

42:34SPEAKER- Yeah. - So I can tell you that.

42:36SPEAKER- They were really worried about Wart.

42:37SPEAKERWart was the bad guy in Super Mario Bros. 2, right?

42:39SPEAKER- Yep, he's a giant frog.

42:42SPEAKER- We don't hear a lot from Wart these days.

42:43SPEAKER- No, Super Mario Bros. 2 did not get it to do,

42:47SPEAKERin my opinion.

42:48SPEAKER- I need to go back and play it now that I have the CRT again

42:51SPEAKER'cause I think it doesn't play well with the latency.

42:55SPEAKER- Well, I mean, no better or worse than any other game

42:58SPEAKERfrom that era, but...

43:00SPEAKER- Is this all art from the manuals?

43:02SPEAKERIs that where all this line art came from?

43:05SPEAKER- This is a lot of art.

43:06SPEAKERI think manuals, I bet a lot of this is from the manuals.

43:09SPEAKERI wouldn't think, I mean, it's probably all just general

43:11SPEAKERkey art that they made and put in manuals

43:13SPEAKERand things like this.

43:15SPEAKER- Where's the Lou Albano page?

43:16SPEAKERI didn't find that.

43:17SPEAKER- Well, it's pretty close to the beginning.

43:19SPEAKERHollywood hero.

43:21SPEAKER- Wow.

43:22SPEAKERThey were still proud of the Mario Super Show at this point.

43:25SPEAKER- Right, yes, page 28.

43:28SPEAKER- The real meat and potatoes here

43:30SPEAKERis a screen by screen breakdown of every single world

43:35SPEAKERin Super Mario World, including the secret worlds.

43:39SPEAKER- Yeah, I wonder how they did that at this time.

43:40SPEAKERThis is like pre Photoshop and pre desktop publishing.

43:44SPEAKER- Oh, I'll tell you how they did that.

43:45SPEAKER- Having to, you're like, I wonder if they have

43:48SPEAKERlike development hardware that they were able to dump

43:50SPEAKERscreenshots from that made it easier to lay this stuff out.

43:53SPEAKER- Maybe, I know that at most of the computer magazines

43:57SPEAKERat this time, they had a dark room where they,

44:01SPEAKERwell, they might've used the source art too.

44:02SPEAKER- Well, I'm talking from the screenshots

44:04SPEAKER'cause they've got, like you said,

44:05SPEAKERthey've got these, they've got these like giant strips

44:07SPEAKERthat are the entire levels of numerous levels in here.

44:10SPEAKERAnd then they clearly had to lift,

44:12SPEAKERthey clearly had to lift screenshots

44:14SPEAKERand stitch them together for this thing.

44:15SPEAKER- They probably did, the way we did it in the future

44:19SPEAKERin those days was we had a really dark room with a TV

44:22SPEAKERand a telephoto lens on it.

44:24SPEAKERSo you'd stand like 20 feet away from the TV

44:26SPEAKERand somebody would play the TV

44:27SPEAKERand somebody else would shoot pictures

44:29SPEAKERand you would then print, you'd have the photos developed

44:34SPEAKERand then you would tape them together

44:36SPEAKERand put cellophane tape over the seams

44:39SPEAKERso that when you laid them out,

44:40SPEAKERyou could blow them up or shrink them or whatever.

44:43SPEAKER- You know, I bet it was something like that

44:44SPEAKER'cause even if they did have like development hardware

44:46SPEAKERthat could get screenshots, what are you gonna put them on?

44:48SPEAKERYou know, like it's not like,

44:49SPEAKER- Yeah, there weren't, well,

44:51SPEAKER- The dominant computer at this time was like a 286,

44:53SPEAKERlike it's not like the,

44:56SPEAKERit's not like they could really,

44:58SPEAKER- Yeah, this would have been 90 probably, right?

44:59SPEAKER- Even if they could get native digital images

45:02SPEAKERof all this stuff, there's not a whole lot

45:04SPEAKERthey could do with them anyway.

45:05SPEAKER- And what's this, it doesn't say when this was published.

45:07SPEAKER- 91, right?

45:09SPEAKER- Well, it could have been after though too,

45:10SPEAKERbut I assume it was time to come out with Super Mario,

45:13SPEAKERwith this nest in Super Mario World.

45:15SPEAKER- Yeah.

45:17SPEAKER- Yeah, I don't know.

45:18SPEAKERI like, this is a weird time for publishing, right?

45:21SPEAKER'Cause it was like Photoshop existed at this point though.

45:24SPEAKER- Did it, I'm not sure, are you sure about that?

45:28SPEAKER- I managed a Photoshop machine in 1992 probably, so.

45:32SPEAKER- Oh, wow, God, '87 was the first version

45:34SPEAKERof Photoshop actually.

45:35SPEAKER- Yeah, yeah, so like there was some desktop publishing,

45:38SPEAKERQuark was around at that point I bet,

45:40SPEAKERPageMaker, I think was the oldest PageMaker

45:43SPEAKERwas still a thing.

45:43SPEAKER- All right. - So yeah.

45:44SPEAKER- Okay.

45:45SPEAKER- But I don't, my guess is that this is a combination

45:48SPEAKERof some real analog business and then also,

45:54SPEAKERlike the way you would lay out a page back then

45:56SPEAKERin the pre-computer days was you would have it

45:58SPEAKERon a big drafting board and you would lay out

46:01SPEAKERall the components and then you'd take that into a room

46:04SPEAKERthat had controlled lighting

46:05SPEAKERand you'd shoot a picture of that

46:06SPEAKERand then you'd send the film to the printing press,

46:09SPEAKERtwo separations to send the film to the printing press.

46:11SPEAKER- That's wild to think all of that

46:12SPEAKERwas just photographed physically.

46:15SPEAKER- All analog process.

46:17SPEAKER- Well, look, things were simpler back then.

46:19SPEAKER- Ain't that the truth?

46:20SPEAKER(upbeat music)

46:23SPEAKER- Okay, something happened this week

46:24SPEAKERthat I am ashamed to admit it's never happened before.

46:26SPEAKERIt really calls into question my, A, my memory

46:30SPEAKERand B, my, I don't know, notification policies.

46:34SPEAKER- Uh-oh, what'd you miss?

46:37SPEAKER- Well, how do you know I missed something?

46:38SPEAKER- I'm just assuming.

46:40SPEAKERWith your advancing years,

46:41SPEAKERit has to be something forgetting something.

46:43SPEAKER- I feel weird saying this on a podcast

46:45SPEAKER'cause I feel like they're gonna come arrest me.

46:47SPEAKERI missed jury duty.

46:49SPEAKER- Oh, hold on, what kind of like local jury duty

46:51SPEAKERor like federal jury duty? - San Francisco

46:53SPEAKERor city, whatever.

46:54SPEAKER- Criminal or civil?

46:55SPEAKER- I think that was the jurisdiction.

46:57SPEAKERWell, I think that gets determined after you report

46:59SPEAKERand if you get-

47:01SPEAKER- No, no, no, 'cause you go to different places

47:02SPEAKERin the city for civil versus criminal court.

47:05SPEAKER- Oh, no, this was civil.

47:06SPEAKEROkay, actually I'm looking at the summons.

47:07SPEAKER- Yeah, that is nothing.

47:08SPEAKERDon't worry about it then, it's fine.

47:10SPEAKER- I was on standby.

47:12SPEAKERI think San Francisco is the only place

47:13SPEAKERwhere I've ever dealt with jury duty.

47:14SPEAKERMaybe it's 'cause it's the only place I've,

47:16SPEAKERI mean, I was an adult for a few years before I came here,

47:18SPEAKERbut I mean, I guess does this happen in every municipality?

47:21SPEAKER- Well, I mean, there's jury duty everywhere

47:22SPEAKERand Tennessee, when I got called for jury duty,

47:24SPEAKERyou basically like, they didn't have the system,

47:27SPEAKERlike the system we have here is that you call,

47:29SPEAKERyou go to a website in the morning

47:31SPEAKERand put your juror number in.

47:32SPEAKER- Or at night, it's the night before.

47:33SPEAKER- Yeah, the night before.

47:34SPEAKERAnd they tell you if they need you that next day.

47:36SPEAKER- Yeah, so your summons is for a week

47:37SPEAKERor your standby service is for a week and every night,

47:40SPEAKERevery evening before the next day,

47:43SPEAKERyou have to check to see if your group number

47:44SPEAKERis called to report in.

47:46SPEAKER- Exactly.

47:47SPEAKER- I've done this, I don't know how many times,

47:48SPEAKERI've had jury duty six or eight,

47:50SPEAKERprobably at least six or eight times

47:53SPEAKERsince I moved out here.

47:54SPEAKER- Yeah.

47:55SPEAKER- 'Cause once you complete it,

47:57SPEAKERyou're only good for a year.

47:58SPEAKERUsually I don't get called for way more than a year.

48:00SPEAKERIt's been like two or three years.

48:01SPEAKER- If you're actually seated,

48:02SPEAKERyou usually have even more time between.

48:05SPEAKER- But I've never missed anything related to jury duty.

48:09SPEAKERI've reported every time they've said to,

48:12SPEAKERI had the card out on my desk.

48:14SPEAKER- Oh no.

48:16SPEAKER- Was just like, you know, whatever.

48:18SPEAKERMonday night, I was busy getting my taxes done.

48:21SPEAKER- Yeah.

48:21SPEAKER- Just forgot to look at the card.

48:24SPEAKER- Oh no, you didn't go?

48:26SPEAKER- Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

48:27SPEAKERI forgot Monday night, well, Sunday night,

48:29SPEAKERI checked Sunday night, I was fine for Monday.

48:30SPEAKERI've had multiple summons in the past for standby services

48:33SPEAKERwhere I never got called.

48:34SPEAKERAnd if you don't get called for the entire week,

48:37SPEAKERyou're still just good.

48:38SPEAKERLike you're like, okay, that counts.

48:39SPEAKERYou're released, that counts.

48:41SPEAKERSo Sunday night, I was fine.

48:43SPEAKERMonday night, I was up or not up, you know,

48:45SPEAKERbut I was like busy trying to get my taxes done

48:47SPEAKERtill like 8 p.m. or something.

48:48SPEAKER- That's not a valid excuse, Brad.

48:49SPEAKER- Just plain forgot to pull up the website

48:53SPEAKERdespite having my card sitting right here on the desk.

48:56SPEAKERAbout 11 a.m. Tuesday morning, I was just seized by fear.

49:00SPEAKERAnd I was like, oh my God,

49:01SPEAKERI forgot to check the website last night.

49:03SPEAKERBut there's like a dozen groups every week.

49:06SPEAKERAnd they usually only call one or two groups a day.

49:08SPEAKERSo I was like, okay, my odds are still very good.

49:10SPEAKERIt's only day two.

49:12SPEAKERI'm probably fine.

49:15SPEAKERI was not fine.

49:16SPEAKER- Did the, what's the name?

49:21SPEAKERWhat was Bull on Night Court?

49:24SPEAKER- He's not a bailiff, is he?

49:25SPEAKER- But yeah, did the bailiff come to your house?

49:26SPEAKER- Oh no.

49:27SPEAKER- Take your door in?

49:28SPEAKERLike hey, grab you by the scruff of the neck?

49:30SPEAKER- Like the one and only group they called

49:32SPEAKERfor the entire court system that day was my group.

49:36SPEAKER- Wow.

49:37SPEAKER- It was like, I was just like slow motion scrolling

49:40SPEAKERthe website feeling sheer terror when I saw

49:43SPEAKERthat I was supposed to have reported three hours earlier.

49:46SPEAKER- So you can always call them and be like,

49:48SPEAKERhey, I'm sorry, I'm not there.

49:49SPEAKERI have really bad diarrhea.

49:50SPEAKER'Cause nobody's gonna make that up.

49:52SPEAKERYou're not gonna use that as an excuse

49:53SPEAKERunless you have really bad diarrhea.

49:54SPEAKER- Okay, look, let me just say upfront here,

49:57SPEAKERI think I could be forgiven for being a little extra skittish

49:59SPEAKERabout dealing with anything like governmentally

50:02SPEAKERbureaucratic right now.

50:04SPEAKER- Yeah, civil court though.

50:05SPEAKER- Let's say, I mean, maybe institutions haven't completely

50:10SPEAKERbroken down here yet, but you know what I'm saying?

50:12SPEAKER- Yeah, it's, so look, I've forgotten stuff before too.

50:15SPEAKERIt happens to everybody, it's fine.

50:17SPEAKER- I called and like, I mean, I should just cut to the chase.

50:20SPEAKERI called and the dude was just not even,

50:23SPEAKERhe was not even worried about it and he was just like,

50:26SPEAKERwe'll just reschedule you.

50:27SPEAKERYou wanna do May, do you wanna do June?

50:29SPEAKER- Look, the secret is to pick Thanksgiving week.

50:32SPEAKER- Yeah.

50:32SPEAKER- 'Cause they shut down on Wednesday, so you got two days.

50:35SPEAKER- He did not give me the option of pushing it that far out.

50:38SPEAKER- Oh, okay.

50:39SPEAKER- I think your penance is, the idea was your penance is

50:42SPEAKERyou are going to make it up soon.

50:44SPEAKER- Yeah.

50:45SPEAKER- But you know, I briefly Googled around like,

50:48SPEAKERwhat are the maximum penalties?

50:50SPEAKERIt looks like the maximum penalty

50:51SPEAKERcould have been a $250 fine.

50:54SPEAKERTechnically, if you want to be like technical,

50:57SPEAKERlike according to the law,

50:58SPEAKERthe judge could issue a bench warrant for your arrest,

51:00SPEAKERbut it's probably not quite.

51:03SPEAKER- Well, so I had jury duty one time in San Mateo

51:06SPEAKERfor the San Mateo criminal court

51:08SPEAKERand the jury selection took more than one day.

51:10SPEAKERSo I showed up for the first day and he was like,

51:13SPEAKERokay, everybody back here at eight o'clock tomorrow morning.

51:15SPEAKERAnd I was like, wait, really?

51:16SPEAKERWe have to come back again a second day,

51:17SPEAKEReven though we're not on the jury yet and sure enough.

51:20SPEAKERSo that next day when he was calling roll for the jurors

51:22SPEAKERand like two people didn't show up,

51:24SPEAKERhe issued bench warrants for them.

51:26SPEAKER- No kidding.

51:27SPEAKER- Yeah, he was pissed.

51:28SPEAKER- Wow, that's exactly what I read in a Reddit thread

51:30SPEAKERabout San Francisco jury duty was somebody saying,

51:33SPEAKERI've seen a judge furious before issuing arrest warrants

51:36SPEAKERfrom the bench because he was pissed.

51:38SPEAKER- Yeah, then somebody showed up.

51:40SPEAKERIt was specifically because somebody showed up the day before

51:42SPEAKERand then didn't show up the next day

51:44SPEAKERwhen he gave really explicit instructions

51:45SPEAKERthat you had to come back the next day.

51:46SPEAKER- Sure, I almost got put on a murder trial in 2008.

51:50SPEAKER- Oof, don't want that.

51:51SPEAKER- I know it was 2008 because it was directly prior

51:54SPEAKERto the one Tokyo game show that we went to at Giant Bomb.

51:57SPEAKER- Yeah.

51:58SPEAKER- When Giant Bomb was about two months old.

52:00SPEAKER- Yeah.

52:01SPEAKER- And I was in the very last round of,

52:03SPEAKERit was, they flat out said like, hey, this is a murder trial.

52:07SPEAKERThis could take up to a month.

52:08SPEAKERLike know that, know that going in.

52:11SPEAKERAnd we already had the plane tickets booked for TGS.

52:13SPEAKER- Oh, the plane tickets, booked plane tickets

52:15SPEAKERwill get you out every time though.

52:16SPEAKER- The whole thing.

52:17SPEAKERBut I was close enough to getting put on there

52:19SPEAKERthat we were in the, okay, if you have a valid excuse,

52:22SPEAKERyou need to write it for the like,

52:23SPEAKERthe judge will go through these excuses.

52:25SPEAKER- Yeah.

52:26SPEAKER- But I full on said like, hey,

52:27SPEAKERI'm like one out of four people at a brand new startup

52:30SPEAKERthat has an international business trip coming up.

52:32SPEAKER- Yeah. - In like nine days,

52:34SPEAKERit would be pretty bad for a business

52:36SPEAKERif I was not able to go.

52:37SPEAKERSo it was fine.

52:38SPEAKER- I got out of the one that the guy didn't show up for

52:41SPEAKERbecause I was doing a, it was during the food days

52:45SPEAKERand we were doing shoots in Texas

52:48SPEAKERthat would have overlapped with the trials.

52:51SPEAKERAnd he was like, well, clearly you can't do this.

52:53SPEAKERGet the hell out.

52:54SPEAKER- Yeah, anyway.

52:55SPEAKER- I forgot a snow patrol show one time.

52:58SPEAKER- Oh.

52:59SPEAKER- Yeah, we were, we had bought paper,

53:01SPEAKERit was back when you still got paper tickets

53:03SPEAKERand we'd bought the tickets

53:04SPEAKERand we put them on the refrigerator.

53:07SPEAKERAnd then like 10 days after the show,

53:10SPEAKERGina looked at the tickets and we're like,

53:11SPEAKERhey, what's today?

53:13SPEAKERI was like, it's such and such plus 10 days.

53:15SPEAKERAnd she was like, oh crap.

53:18SPEAKERWe forgot we were supposed to go to a show at the Warfield.

53:20SPEAKER- Well. - That stunk.

53:21SPEAKER- I'm sure that was an equally crappy

53:23SPEAKERbut somehow less legally actionable feeling.

53:26SPEAKER- I don't think the early 2000s,

53:28SPEAKERlike garage indie rock cops were gonna come get me.

53:31SPEAKER- Probably not.

53:32SPEAKERAnyway, you know, maybe it's time to start setting up

53:35SPEAKERreminders for things like this.

53:36SPEAKER- Smooth criminal.

53:38SPEAKERDo you not use a calendar?

53:39SPEAKER- No. - Oh.

53:40SPEAKER- I typically use my brain for things like this.

53:43SPEAKER- Oh, you can't trust your brain.

53:45SPEAKERYour brain's bad.

53:46SPEAKER- Look, it's gotten me this far.

53:48SPEAKER- Look, if you don't write it down, it didn't happen.

53:49SPEAKERThat's the rule.

53:53SPEAKERSo I killed another monitor, Brad.

53:54SPEAKER- Another one?

53:55SPEAKER- Yeah.

53:56SPEAKER- The monitor murderer strikes again?

53:58SPEAKER- I don't, like part of it is that my monitors were old,

54:02SPEAKERI guess, 'cause like my,

54:03SPEAKERthis one was more than 10 years old.

54:05SPEAKERI bought it during the food days.

54:07SPEAKER- Okay.

54:07SPEAKER- But also, I'm, like it just didn't power on one day.

54:13SPEAKERLike I don't know what to, I don't know,

54:14SPEAKERI don't know what's going on.

54:15SPEAKERI think I'm gonna try the,

54:16SPEAKERlike this one doesn't have any obvious fix.

54:18SPEAKERThis is an Acer, it's the first Acer 4K G-Sync monitor,

54:21SPEAKERbasically, so it's a 27 inch XB something or other.

54:26SPEAKERAnd it's just doing the thing where it doesn't power on

54:29SPEAKERwhen you hit the power button, which--

54:30SPEAKER- Yeah, that seems bad.

54:31SPEAKER- Well, on my LG UltraWide, that was because the EPROM,

54:35SPEAKERwas showing a corrupt, like the corruption bit

54:40SPEAKERwas showing that it was corrupt, so it just didn't boot.

54:43SPEAKERAnd I was able to fix it by just downloading the firmware

54:45SPEAKERfrom the chip and then re-uploading it,

54:47SPEAKERwhich reset the corruption bit.

54:49SPEAKER- Yes.

54:51SPEAKER- And I was looking at this one,

54:52SPEAKERand the EPROM is the same exact EPROM as on that LG.

54:55SPEAKER- Oh.

54:56SPEAKER- And I have the writer for it right here.

54:58SPEAKER- All right.

54:59SPEAKER- So I think I'm gonna bust it open and give it a try.

55:01SPEAKER- Might as well.

55:02SPEAKER- See what I can do.

55:03SPEAKER- Yeah.

55:04SPEAKER- But I don't, I'm like, why am I killing

55:05SPEAKERall these monitors?

55:06SPEAKER- I don't know.

55:07SPEAKER- Did they just die after 10 years?

55:08SPEAKERAnd I just have never had one that long.

55:09SPEAKER- I've been sitting here trying to think

55:10SPEAKERof some Jack the Ripper equivalent for monitors.

55:13SPEAKERLike, what do you got?

55:14SPEAKER- And the monitors were asking for it, okay.

55:16SPEAKER- Whoa.

55:18SPEAKERI mean, what'd you say, 10 years old?

55:20SPEAKER- Yeah, I bought it in like 2017, 2016 probably.

55:23SPEAKER- How do we feel about 10 years for a monitor?

55:25SPEAKERThat's like a decent run, right?

55:27SPEAKER- I mean, typically up until this point,

55:29SPEAKERlike the resolutions haven't stayed the same long enough

55:32SPEAKERthat I would keep a monitor for more than that.

55:33SPEAKER'Cause like I went from 1080p panels

55:36SPEAKERor probably the 1024 by 768 or 1280 by 1024,

55:42SPEAKERlike weird aspect ratio panels to 1080p panels to like-

55:47SPEAKER- Look, man.

55:48SPEAKER- 30 inch panels.

55:49SPEAKER- Well-documented, I was on 1680 by 1050 for about 15 years.

55:53SPEAKER- Yeah, we don't need to talk about that.

55:54SPEAKER- We're just fine.

55:55SPEAKER- I wasn't gonna bring it up.

55:56SPEAKERI was gonna let you stew in that one.

55:58SPEAKER- You know, these bigger monitors are better.

56:02SPEAKERI'm gonna say.

56:02SPEAKER- Well, so I switched,

56:04SPEAKERso I have that OLED, the 4K OLED on the bottom now,

56:07SPEAKERand I put my old 1080p 360 monitor on the top.

56:10SPEAKERAnd I'm going to say, I don't know how I lived like this.

56:12SPEAKER1080p is not enough pixels.

56:13SPEAKER- No, it's really not.

56:15SPEAKER- Like modern UI is not made for 1080p anymore.

56:18SPEAKER- No, I think you're right.

56:19SPEAKER- Yeah.

56:20SPEAKER- Yeah, so I'm quite happy on 1440p, 27 inch.

56:24SPEAKERI think that's a good-

56:25SPEAKER- Well, you have two of them too.

56:26SPEAKER- Well, yes, that's fair.

56:27SPEAKERBut I think I'm always going to have two monitors

56:29SPEAKERfrom now on, it's just too useful not to.

56:31SPEAKER- I think the-

56:33SPEAKER- Maybe three at some point.

56:35SPEAKER- Three is too many.

56:36SPEAKER- Is it?

56:37SPEAKER- I've had three before.

56:38SPEAKER- I've got a three monitor mount in the closet

56:40SPEAKERthat I've never used that I was sent by a company

56:43SPEAKERthat I've been thinking more and more that when,

56:48SPEAKERif and when there is a good OLED 27 inch,

56:52SPEAKERlike same size and resolution as these,

56:53SPEAKERbut OLED that is like reasonably priced,

56:56SPEAKERI might get that three monitor mount out.

57:01SPEAKER- I think those are under 800 bucks now.

57:03SPEAKER- Yeah, that's still more than I want to pay for.

57:05SPEAKERThat's still way more than I want to pay for a monitor.

57:07SPEAKER- OLED's a premium product.

57:09SPEAKER- These are working just fine.

57:11SPEAKERBut I spend enough time these days

57:14SPEAKERlooking at like white text on black background

57:16SPEAKERthat I keep thinking like, man,

57:18SPEAKERwhat if there was no backlight here?

57:20SPEAKERWhat if it was just the text on the screen

57:21SPEAKERand nothing else?

57:22SPEAKER- I'm going to tell you when I have like,

57:25SPEAKERwhen I put Discord into ultra dark mode

57:27SPEAKERand put it on the OLED,

57:29SPEAKERit's like the text is just floating in space.

57:33SPEAKER- Seriously, I can't even imagine what that looks like

57:35SPEAKERto have like just a void of nothing

57:37SPEAKERexcept for some letters appearing on the screen.

57:39SPEAKERI want to see that very badly.

57:41SPEAKER- Maybe the answer to this problem

57:43SPEAKERis for me to get a second OLED 4K

57:46SPEAKERand put that on the top.

57:47SPEAKER- Maybe.

57:48SPEAKER- But yeah, like looking at the OLED,

57:50SPEAKERthe white text on the black screen with the OLED

57:52SPEAKERis like staring God in the face.

57:53SPEAKERIt's delightful.

57:54SPEAKER- Yeah, I bet.

57:55SPEAKERAre we good on burn-in?

57:56SPEAKERLike, are we feeling good?

57:57SPEAKER- Is scaring God in the face good or bad?

57:59SPEAKER- I don't know.

58:00SPEAKERDepends on what you did.

58:00SPEAKER- I feel like it's not going to be good most of the time.

58:02SPEAKER- Really depends on what you did to get there.

58:04SPEAKER- Yeah.

58:06SPEAKER- Are we good on burn-in?

58:07SPEAKERLike, are OLED monitors like safe long-term now?

58:11SPEAKER- This one's a loaner from the company that makes it,

58:13SPEAKERso I wasn't really thinking about it in the long-term.

58:15SPEAKER- Not gonna have to worry about that.

58:16SPEAKER- I'm just enjoying the time I have with it.

58:19SPEAKERI think it does it every 16 hours of online use.

58:24SPEAKERIt's like, hey, you should do the self-care routine now,

58:29SPEAKERor we can just do it

58:29SPEAKERthe next time you turn off your computer.

58:32SPEAKER- What does that entail?

58:33SPEAKER- It turns off for like five minutes

58:34SPEAKERand then turns back on, I don't know.

58:36SPEAKER- Oh, interesting.

58:37SPEAKER- I assume it's looking at the Pixelware

58:38SPEAKERand is even, is like doing some business to even it out.

58:42SPEAKERI don't know.

58:43SPEAKER- Okay.

58:44SPEAKERHow about micro-LED monitors?

58:45SPEAKER- I don't think there's a thing there yet.

58:47SPEAKER- It should be.

58:48SPEAKER- The micro-LEDs are the ones

58:50SPEAKERthat the LEDs produce the light.

58:52SPEAKER- Micro-LED is basically the same as OLED

58:53SPEAKERminus the organic compounds, minus the O.

58:56SPEAKER- Yeah.

58:57SPEAKER- It's just a different way

58:58SPEAKERof producing the same style of self-inmissive pixels.

59:00SPEAKER- Well, there's also the micro-LED backlights

59:02SPEAKERwith the local dimming and all that stuff.

59:04SPEAKER- Oh, that's mini-LED.

59:05SPEAKER- Mini-LED, okay.

59:06SPEAKER- Mini-LED is that.

59:07SPEAKER- Yeah.

59:08SPEAKER- Micro-LED is basically supposed to be the successor to OLED.

59:11SPEAKERIt's basically OLED without the disadvantages.

59:13SPEAKERLike it's brighter and it doesn't have burn-in issues

59:15SPEAKERsupposedly. - Gotcha.

59:16SPEAKER- But I'm gonna say it's gonna be like,

59:18SPEAKERif OLED monitors are still $800,

59:21SPEAKERit's probably gonna be 15 years

59:23SPEAKERbefore there are decent micro-LED monitors out there.

59:25SPEAKER- The first micro-LED stuff that people saw at CES,

59:29SPEAKERthey were underwhelmed with the image quality on,

59:31SPEAKERwas my understanding.

59:32SPEAKERAnd I think it's mostly for bigger screens

59:34SPEAKERthat you'd probably use for a desktop monitor.

59:35SPEAKER- Probably, it's probably a long way off.

59:38SPEAKERI don't know, I might start staring at OLED monitors

59:41SPEAKERa little more intently

59:42SPEAKERand not actually doing anything about it, but staring.

59:44SPEAKER- I'm gonna go ahead and tell you,

59:45SPEAKERlike I said this before,

59:46SPEAKERbut if you have like a decent computer,

59:49SPEAKERif you're looking for what to spend money on

59:50SPEAKERbefore the tariffs destroy our economy,

59:55SPEAKERI would, and you have a decent video card,

59:57SPEAKERI would absolutely buy one of these nice,

1:00:00SPEAKERlike a thousand bucks spent on this OLED monitor,

1:00:02SPEAKERif you have a 3080 or 3090 or 4090 or 4080

1:00:06SPEAKERor something like that,

1:00:07SPEAKERis gonna be way better for you

1:00:08SPEAKERthan buying a five series video card.

1:00:10SPEAKER- Yeah, it occurred to me the last time you said that,

1:00:12SPEAKERthat I wonder if OLED monitors are now in that position

1:00:15SPEAKERthat SSDs were 15 years ago, where it was like,

1:00:17SPEAKERthis is the single most meaningful upgrade

1:00:19SPEAKERyou can get for your computer.

1:00:21SPEAKERIt's like incremental speed increases are nice

1:00:25SPEAKERand all, but they are incremental

1:00:27SPEAKERand this is like a sea change, you know what I mean?

1:00:29SPEAKERIt's like this will fundamentally alter your relationship

1:00:32SPEAKERto using the computer.

1:00:33SPEAKER- Yeah, it's the only thing that I worry about

1:00:35SPEAKERis the saturation, like the color saturation.

1:00:38SPEAKERI can't tell if it's just because the way the OLED works

1:00:40SPEAKERor if it's because this monitor is like oversaturated.

1:00:45SPEAKERI feel like the color or because it's an HDR OLED

1:00:48SPEAKERversus HDR LCD on the top,

1:00:51SPEAKERlike it feels, sometimes it feels a little bit much.

1:00:54SPEAKER- Yeah, I could see that, you know what occurs to me

1:00:57SPEAKERtalking about buying an OLED monitor

1:00:58SPEAKERand stacking it next to these two LCDs.

1:01:01SPEAKER- What?

1:01:03SPEAKER- Am I gonna be able to keep using two LCDs next to an OLED?

1:01:07SPEAKER- So, look, my top monitor has reference material

1:01:11SPEAKERand reading stuff and like Discord and things like that.

1:01:13SPEAKER- Yes. - It's fine.

1:01:15SPEAKER- Yeah, I'm mostly joking.

1:01:16SPEAKERI would play games on the OLED and the Discord

1:01:19SPEAKERand the DS would go on the sides, it would be fine.

1:01:22SPEAKER- What if you got real into racing games

1:01:24SPEAKERand you put three monitors around you

1:01:28SPEAKERand then you put a steering wheel on your desk

1:01:30SPEAKERand you became one of those guys?

1:01:32SPEAKER- Yeah, what if?

1:01:33SPEAKER- Think about it.

1:01:34SPEAKER- That's, you know, maybe I'll just keep thinking about it.

1:01:37SPEAKER- Yeah, think about it.

1:01:39SPEAKER(upbeat music)

1:01:42SPEAKERWe've reached the time when like I'd be staring

1:01:44SPEAKERat the barrel of a new Zachtronics game

1:01:46SPEAKERif Zachtronics hadn't shut down.

1:01:48SPEAKER- Yeah, Zachtronics, amazingly prolific developer

1:01:50SPEAKERfor the type of, given the type of games they put out.

1:01:53SPEAKER- Yeah, well, I mean, they, so, hmm.

1:01:57SPEAKERHow do you describe Zachtronics, I guess?

1:01:59SPEAKER- They're programming games.

1:02:00SPEAKERThey're like, I mean, even that,

1:02:02SPEAKERI feel like is selling it short.

1:02:03SPEAKERSome of them are, but like they're engineering games maybe?

1:02:06SPEAKER- Yeah, that's it, they're really structured, right?

1:02:10SPEAKERSo mechanically complicated.

1:02:12SPEAKER- Like now that I'm looking at their website,

1:02:13SPEAKERlike even that is selling them short

1:02:15SPEAKER'cause like some of their games are like, okay,

1:02:19SPEAKERthere's TIS 100, which literally has you doing

1:02:21SPEAKERlike fake programming, fake assembly language

1:02:24SPEAKERon a fake like calculator or a fake processor

1:02:26SPEAKERthat never existed.

1:02:28SPEAKERThere's Shenzhen I/O, which is like having you

1:02:31SPEAKERmaking circuits and writing code to drive them and stuff.

1:02:34SPEAKERAnd then there's-

1:02:35SPEAKER- Moloch, Syntez and Space Chem

1:02:37SPEAKERare basically like molecular assembly games.

1:02:40SPEAKERLike you're building nano machines basically.

1:02:43SPEAKER- And Last Call BBS was their last game before they'd said,

1:02:46SPEAKERhey, we're not making games anymore.

1:02:47SPEAKERAnd that's like you running a BBS,

1:02:48SPEAKERbut then I look at all these other games,

1:02:50SPEAKERthey've got like, they've got a Solitaire collection,

1:02:54SPEAKERthey've got Mobius Front 83,

1:02:56SPEAKERwhich is a full on like X-based tank military strategy game.

1:03:02SPEAKERThey've got a visual novel.

1:03:04SPEAKER- Yeah.

1:03:05SPEAKER- This might be the most prolific

1:03:07SPEAKERand what's the word I'm looking for?

1:03:08SPEAKERLike varied game developer I've ever seen.

1:03:12SPEAKERThey've got-

1:03:13SPEAKER- Their oeuvre is wide.

1:03:15SPEAKER- Ironclad Tactics is a fast paced card-based tactics game

1:03:18SPEAKERset in an alternate history civil war.

1:03:21SPEAKER- Yeah, it's always high concept stuff

1:03:23SPEAKERthat has weird metal layers and like, I don't know.

1:03:26SPEAKER- Also, how many people was Zachtronics?

1:03:28SPEAKER- It was small.

1:03:30SPEAKER- Yeah, like I always got the sense of,

1:03:31SPEAKERI mean, it was literally one guy, right?

1:03:32SPEAKERI mean, there is a Zach, right?

1:03:34SPEAKER- There is a Zach, yeah.

1:03:35SPEAKERBut I think he had a larger team by the end.

1:03:38SPEAKER- They made a game called Zachademics.

1:03:41SPEAKERThat's great.

1:03:42SPEAKER- That sounds pretty good.

1:03:43SPEAKER- That's great.

1:03:44SPEAKERAnyway, like I think, how did this come about?

1:03:45SPEAKERYou were telling me yesterday that I should play TIS 100

1:03:48SPEAKERor you were like, "Hey, there's a Zachtronics game

1:03:50SPEAKERthat literally kind of teaches assembly language."

1:03:53SPEAKER- Yeah, you should play TIS 100.

1:03:55SPEAKERI didn't realize this, but Infiniminer,

1:03:57SPEAKERwhich is an open source game, sandbox multiplayer game

1:04:00SPEAKERdeveloped by Zachtronics inspired Minecraft apparently.

1:04:03SPEAKER- Wait, are you sure you're thinking of Infinifactory?

1:04:06SPEAKER- No, I'm talking about Infiniminer.

1:04:07SPEAKERIt's not a game that they sell now.

1:04:09SPEAKER- Are you serious?

1:04:11SPEAKERLike I definitely know Infiniminer as the game

1:04:13SPEAKERthat Minecraft kind of took its whole thing from,

1:04:16SPEAKERbut I had no idea Zachtronics was who made Infiniminer.

1:04:20SPEAKERThat's fucking crazy.

1:04:22SPEAKERWhat?

1:04:23SPEAKER- Yeah, Zach Barth is who made,

1:04:26SPEAKERis the Zach in Zachtronics.

1:04:28SPEAKER- If I were the person who made the game

1:04:30SPEAKERthat heavily, heavily, heavily inspired Minecraft,

1:04:34SPEAKERI might also get out of the game eventually.

1:04:36SPEAKER- I mean-

1:04:37SPEAKER- That's gotta be a tough one.

1:04:39SPEAKERIt literally says it on the page right here.

1:04:42SPEAKER- Yeah.

1:04:43SPEAKER- Infiniminer is a first person competitive mining game

1:04:45SPEAKERthat takes place in a procedurally generated block world,

1:04:47SPEAKERallowing players to mine, build, and explore.

1:04:50SPEAKERSound familiar?

1:04:52SPEAKERThat's because Infiniminer is the game

1:04:54SPEAKERthat started the block genre that everyone knows and loves.

1:04:57SPEAKER- Wow.

1:04:58SPEAKERIs this on their page for Infiniminer?

1:05:00SPEAKER- That is on the Zachtronics page for Infiniminer.

1:05:01SPEAKERThat's got to be rough,

1:05:04SPEAKERmaking the game that then inspired a game

1:05:07SPEAKERthat went on to make billions and billions of dollars.

1:05:09SPEAKER- Wow.

1:05:11SPEAKER- Yeah, wow.

1:05:12SPEAKERI don't know if there's anything else to say.

1:05:13SPEAKER- Yeah, I think, I think, I think that man, whew.

1:05:17SPEAKER- You're not wrong though.

1:05:18SPEAKERLike I've looked at Zachtronics from afar

1:05:21SPEAKERwith interest for a long time

1:05:22SPEAKERand I maybe I should crack into TIS 100.

1:05:25SPEAKERThere's like, there's like a whole little like sub genre

1:05:27SPEAKERof programming games on Steam now

1:05:29SPEAKERthat if I had more time, I would love to dig into.

1:05:32SPEAKERI'm sure you've seen a lot of these.

1:05:34SPEAKER- Like, well, it's interesting 'cause like,

1:05:36SPEAKERI want to say the World of Goo people made one too.

1:05:39SPEAKERThat's like a, like teaches you algorithms basically.

1:05:43SPEAKERTower of Human Resource Machine.

1:05:46SPEAKER- Oh yes, human, oh yes, I've heard of that.

1:05:48SPEAKER- Also 7 Billion Humans is like a similar,

1:05:53SPEAKERit's the same company, same idea.

1:05:55SPEAKERIt's basically teaching you algorithm design

1:05:58SPEAKERand how to do sorts and stuff.

1:06:00SPEAKER- The one that if I ever have the time

1:06:02SPEAKERto check one of these out,

1:06:03SPEAKERthe one I really would like to check out

1:06:04SPEAKERis called The Farmer Was Replaced.

1:06:06SPEAKERHave you seen this?

1:06:07SPEAKER- No, I've never seen this.

1:06:08SPEAKER- It's like a combination.

1:06:09SPEAKERIt's like a strategy.

1:06:10SPEAKERIt's a farming simulation strategy game

1:06:12SPEAKERwhere the farms are all run by robots

1:06:14SPEAKERand you are programming the robots.

1:06:16SPEAKER- Oh man, this looks fabulous.

1:06:18SPEAKER- And from what I've looked at the code,

1:06:19SPEAKERlike the syntax is like basically Python.

1:06:21SPEAKERLike it's basically just a simple programming,

1:06:23SPEAKERbut a very familiar looking programming language.

1:06:25SPEAKER- Oh man, that's cool.

1:06:26SPEAKER- Like you're full on writing functions

1:06:28SPEAKERthat you can call to have the robots do different stuff.

1:06:30SPEAKERLike it sounds awesome.

1:06:32SPEAKER- So the Human Resource Machine stuff

1:06:34SPEAKERis more abstract than that.

1:06:36SPEAKERIt's like, if then loops and stuff like that.

1:06:41SPEAKERAnd you can kind of drag them around.

1:06:43SPEAKERSo you can basically,

1:06:44SPEAKEReventually you're building functions

1:06:46SPEAKERand like calling the function to do the repeated,

1:06:53SPEAKERGod, I'm sorry, we're recording this early.

1:06:55SPEAKERWhat's the word when the thing references itself?

1:06:59SPEAKER- Recursive.

1:06:59SPEAKER- Recursive, thank you.

1:07:02SPEAKERSo you can use the,

1:07:03SPEAKERyou can call the function recursively and do all that.

1:07:04SPEAKERLike they literally are teaching recursion

1:07:06SPEAKERand all that stuff in this.

1:07:08SPEAKERLike how do you get the people to go from point A to point B

1:07:11SPEAKERand do the thing that you want along the way?

1:07:12SPEAKER- Yeah, you know what?

1:07:13SPEAKERLike I'm responsible for playing a lot of video games,

1:07:16SPEAKERbut maybe I could carve off like five fewer hours

1:07:19SPEAKERof Assassin's Creed shadows

1:07:20SPEAKERand spend some time programming some robots instead.

1:07:23SPEAKER- Look, man, I would love to do a ongoing,

1:07:27SPEAKERlike this would be a fun ongoing thing

1:07:28SPEAKERwhere we play different programming games

1:07:30SPEAKERand like see if we eventually become programmers.

1:07:33SPEAKER- Hang on, have we just birthed a new bucket

1:07:35SPEAKERfor types of episodes of this podcast?

1:07:38SPEAKER- Oh man.

1:07:39SPEAKER- Maybe we have.

1:07:41SPEAKER- I would maybe watch that, I would listen to that.

1:07:43SPEAKER- Okay, all right, let's, hey,

1:07:46SPEAKERif you out there on the Discord have thoughts

1:07:48SPEAKERabout us playing some programming games

1:07:50SPEAKERand coming on here to talk about them,

1:07:51SPEAKERlet us know. - Yeah, yeah.

1:07:53SPEAKER- Where can people find information about the Discord?

1:07:56SPEAKER- You know, it's funny you say that.

1:07:57SPEAKERThis is a listener supported podcast.

1:07:59SPEAKERSo we wouldn't be here without you, the listener.

1:08:02SPEAKERAnd if you would like to find out how to support the show,

1:08:04SPEAKERyou can go to patreon.com/jackpod

1:08:06SPEAKERwhere for the low, low price of $5 a month,

1:08:09SPEAKERyou get access to our monthly patron exclusive episode

1:08:12SPEAKERwhere we talk about other things.

1:08:14SPEAKERI was listening to other podcasts

1:08:16SPEAKERand they described their patron episode as a looser edit,

1:08:19SPEAKERwhich I think is correct.

1:08:20SPEAKERI think it's like--

1:08:22SPEAKER- As the person who edits the episodes,

1:08:24SPEAKERI can tell you the patron episode gets less editing.

1:08:28SPEAKER- Well, but it's more that we kind of don't cut,

1:08:31SPEAKERlike sometimes we go on weird tangents on these episodes

1:08:34SPEAKERand we'll chop them out.

1:08:35SPEAKERIt's more, yeah, it's much looser and more free association.

1:08:40SPEAKERLike, here's what we've been up to.

1:08:41SPEAKERHere's what is on our minds. - Conversational, yeah.

1:08:44SPEAKERSometimes we take, you know,

1:08:46SPEAKERwe get questions from email,

1:08:47SPEAKERwe get questions from the Discord.

1:08:48SPEAKERSometimes we get questions in the Discord

1:08:49SPEAKERthat are a little silly

1:08:50SPEAKERand we'll sometimes spend some real serious time

1:08:53SPEAKERthinking about the answers to those silly questions.

1:08:55SPEAKERSo yeah, you get that.

1:08:57SPEAKERYou get the access to the Discord,

1:08:59SPEAKERwhich is full of beautiful people

1:09:01SPEAKERwho are interested in a lot of the same things.

1:09:03SPEAKERI guarantee you, you are.

1:09:05SPEAKERIt's funny, I was talking to somebody last night on Blue Sky

1:09:08SPEAKERand they were asking me if I knew anything

1:09:11SPEAKERabout putting solar panels on their deck

1:09:14SPEAKERas a like, hey, how can I get power for things that I need

1:09:19SPEAKERin case of an emergency or whatever, long-term power outage?

1:09:22SPEAKERAnd I was like, I don't know anything

1:09:24SPEAKERabout German solar panels

1:09:25SPEAKER'cause those products are different, but I guarantee you,

1:09:27SPEAKERI know people were having this conversation

1:09:29SPEAKERin the Discord like a month ago

1:09:31SPEAKERand there will be people who are interested

1:09:33SPEAKERin that kind of stuff, whatever weird project you're into.

1:09:35SPEAKERSo it's patreon.com/techpod.

1:09:38SPEAKERAgain, patreon.com/techpod.

1:09:40SPEAKERAnd we really appreciate the support

1:09:41SPEAKERbecause it makes the podcast possible.

1:09:44SPEAKER- It sure does, and we do.

1:09:45SPEAKER- We appreciate each and every one of our patrons,

1:09:48SPEAKERbut we especially appreciate our executive producer

1:09:50SPEAKERto your patrons, including Jason Lee, Andrew Slosky,

1:09:54SPEAKERJordan Lippitt, Bunny Day.

1:09:57SPEAKERBunny Day's this weekend.

1:09:58SPEAKERToday, happy Bunny Day, I guess.

1:09:59SPEAKER- Yeah, happy Bunny Day.

1:10:01SPEAKER- Twinkle Twinkie, David Allen, James Kamik,

1:10:03SPEAKERand Pantheon, makers of the HS3 high-speed 3D printer.

1:10:06SPEAKERThank you all so much.

1:10:07SPEAKER- Yes, we appreciate you.

1:10:09SPEAKER- And that'll do it for us this week.

1:10:11SPEAKERBrad, until next week.

1:10:12SPEAKERI hope you have a lovely holiday weekend.

1:10:16SPEAKER- Thank you, wait, is it a holiday weekend?

1:10:18SPEAKER- I mean, it's Easter.

1:10:19SPEAKER- Oh, wow, okay, all right.

1:10:21SPEAKER- Yeah, Happy Easter, I guess.

1:10:23SPEAKER- I'm gonna spend that time installing Fedora.

1:10:26SPEAKER- You should get a chocolate bunny, treat yourself.

1:10:28SPEAKER- All right, maybe I'll eat a chocolate bunny

1:10:29SPEAKERwhile I install Fedora 42.

1:10:31SPEAKER- There you go, and we will be back next week

1:10:32SPEAKERwith another edition of the TechPod.

1:10:34SPEAKERUntil then, please consider the environment

1:10:36SPEAKERbefore printing this podcast.

1:10:37SPEAKERBye, everybody.